


The Selkie Situation

by jediraptor07



Series: The Rōnin Monster Hunter [1]
Category: Monster Hunter International Series - Larry Correia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Angst, Background Series Characters, Guns Lots of Guns, Hurt, Monster Hunters, Not Beta Read, Original Characters - Freeform, Original MHI Teams, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Selkies, Suicidal Thoughts, bad breakup, fey, referenced attempted suicide-by-selkie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27597350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jediraptor07/pseuds/jediraptor07
Summary: Mike "Sonny" Crockett was finally living the high life: working for MHI with a kickass team and a beautiful fiancé.  Then a simple romantic dinner with the love of his life turned into a dramatic shootout.  That's when everything started falling apart.  The cause of his woes? A selkie princess who he unwittingly betrothed himself to on that fateful evening, and her clan that wants his head on a pike for daring to do so.Abandoned by his company, his friends, and his lover, Sonny must find a way to survive.  Or at least come up with enough cold iron to make a last stand worthy of the ancient minstrels.
Series: The Rōnin Monster Hunter [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029543
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, all. Thank you so much for reading! Constructive criticism is always appreciated, but bear in mind that this is the first fanfic I've written in over a decade, so please be kind!

I was living a moment from a James Bond movie. Not one of the good moments: mine was the bit from _Tomorrow Never Dies_ when 007 is sitting in his hotel room, gun in one hand and a drink in the other, waiting for the hit team that he knows Elliot Carver has no doubt sent to kill him. Only this was a cheap motel room and not a swanky hotel, the gun was the reproduction Bren Ten that Milo Anderson had made for me instead of a silenced Walther PPK, and I had a lowball glass full of apple pie moonshine instead of Smirnoff. So not really a moment from a James Bond movie.

It had been an honest mistake. Hell, it hadn’t been a mistake: I’d thought she was human and I was doing her a favor. Sure, my first clue that something wasn’t right was when the psycho asshole that the “woman” was with had flipped his shit, pulled a gun, and tried to murder me when I’d handed the “woman” the fur coat that the psycho asshole had dropped and then offered to get her an Uber. I was just trying to do the right thing.

What’s they say about good deeds going unpunished?

Come to find out the “woman” is a selkie princess, something I’d done during that wild night that was supposed to have been a romantic dinner with my then-girlfriend – who I’d proposed to the next day, and who’d freaked out a week later when the selkies showed up at Spooky HQ and demanded I make good on my vows – had been taken as a sealed offer of betrothal by the selkie court.

Odette had completely lost her shit at the news. I mean, I get it, Rìchnea was ethereally beautiful and Odette had deep-seated insecurities with her appearance (blame that on her psycho bitch of a maternal unit – I refuse to call that creature a “mother” – who’d thrown her into the child beauty pageant circuit the instant she could walk and demanded an unbroken record of first-place finishes), but she’d freaking been there when the shit had gone down! Why she was accusing me of deliberately cheating on her and backstabbing her, I couldn’t begin to fathom. I wasn’t sure if she was going to break off the engagement by simply giving me the ring back or leading a one-woman Arclight strike on my current position. She was that pissed off.

And, as if things couldn’t get any worse, half the selkie court wanted me to marry Rìchnea and made it clear that they would kill me and mine if I refused – some bullshit about broken oaths and dishonor and mocking their people – but the other half made it clear that they’d kill me and my clan and Rìchnea if I _did_ marry her. Some bullshit about polluting the bloodline and intermarrying.

But MHI would have my back, right?

Wrong.

The selkies considered MHI my clan, which meant that the company and all its employees and associates were “fair game” for both court faction. But Hunters always have each other’s’ backs, right? Apparently that big spiel Earl gave during Newbie training was a bunch of bullshit because he fired me without hesitation. Dominique (team lead) gave me some bullshit line about having to protect the company.

So here I was, 48 hours after this shit started blowing up, completely abandoned. No friends, no fiancé, no backup, not even any silver ammo. Not that silver would do anything against selkie: they’re only vulnerable to cold iron. Which was pretty much an academic distinction since I didn’t have any cold iron either. Just three 14-round mags of lead 10mm hollowpoints (full power, for all the difference it would make), a pair of six-rounders for the .45 Detonic Combat Master replica holstered at the small of my back (thank you again, Milo!), my KA-BAR fighting knife, and three quarters... sorry, half a jar of apple pie shine. All of which would be worth exactly jack shit when the selkie finally came for me. Scratch that: the shine _might_ get me liquored up enough that I wouldn’t feel much when they killed me in whatever horrible way they had planned.

There was a knock at the motel room door. I snatched the Bren Ten up, leveled it at the door, flicked the safety off with my thumb. More knocking. Not loud angry open-the-door-before-we-bust-it-down knocking, but quiet tentative knocking.

“Sonny?”

I knew that voice. Crap.

I moved to the door, pistol still in hand but not up and aimed, pulled the stoppers out from under the bottom, undid the safety chain and deadbolt, and pulled it open.

“Odette.”

My maybe-ex-I-wasn’t-sure-yet fiancé looked like she was coming off a two-day bender. Or had spent the last two days crying. Her alabaster skin had turned ashen, her ice-blue eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and her copper curls were a dull, disheveled, tangled mess. She was wearing a blue Navy sweatsuit and had a large black duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

“Sonny, I...”

“What do you want?” The booze made the question come out as a snarl. At least, it was partly the booze’s fault. Maybe.

“I... I come bearing gifts.” She shrugged the duffel back off her shoulder and offered it to me. I gestured for her to come inside and set the duffel down in the middle of the room.

“Okay, you bared your gifts. You good?”

“Sonny, I’m —”

“You’re what? Sorry?”

“Sonny —”

“How long have we known each other, Odette? How the hell long? How long have we _trusted_ each other? Or did you never trust me? You were there. You fucking _saw_ what happened! Do you really think that the man who put your ex in the ER because he tried to break down your door, dragged you out of a fucking downed airplane and pulled a one-man Shughart & Gordon for you, fucking caught _bullets_ for you, told your psycho mother what she was, where she could do, and what she could do with the _fucking_ horse she rode into town on _and the whole fucking town_ when she got there, swore to always have your back and fucking lived up to that promise how many fucking times? Yeah, I absolutely set the whole thing up, set up a fake proposal to you, set up a random stranger to get _fucking_ _shot dead like a dog_ , fucking set myself up to get fucking _shot,_ and pissed off an entire fucking _kingdom_ , all of whose members will _fucking kill me on sight_ , just so I could fuck a redhead who you think I think is prettier than you. Is that it? Do I have that about right?”

“Sonny, I... I don’t know what... I don’t know what happened...”

“Really? Because I don’t know what happened either. All I know is that two days ago I had a great job, awesome friends, and was going to marry the most amazing, incredible woman I’d ever met, and now I have no job, no friends, and...” I gestured back and forth between the two of us, “...I don’t even know what the fuck we are any more who repeatedly threatened to carpet bomb the shit out of my house. Speaking of which, what are we now, Odette? Huh? What the fuck are we?”

By that point, tears were leaking from her eyes and she was shaking just enough for me to notice, but she kept her composure long enough to pull the diamond ring – the one I’d given her – off of the fourth finger on her right hand and set it on top of the duffel.

“I think you should take that back,” she choked out, “Find a woman who isn’t an emotionally-crippled psycho bitch and give it to her.”

“I never called you that.”

“But I know you’re thinking it. And we both know it’s true.”

“Look, Odette—”

“I... I think I should leave.” I didn’t even have a chance to open my mouth to respond before she turned and fled the room. I started after her, but tripped over the duffel – maybe I was drunker than my thought and _damn_ what was in that thing? Felt like I cracked a toe when I kicked it – so I made it to the door just in time to see her jump into a car. The driver pulled out of the parking space the second the door was closed.

Fuck.

I closed the door, put all the locks and stoppers back, walked back over to the chair, picked up my lowball glass, eyeballed it for a minute.

“FUCK!”

I flung the glass against the far wall. It exploded in a cloud of glass shards and amber booze. Whoever was in the next room pounded angrily on the wall in response the universal message to shut the fuck up. I didn’t give a fuck.

“FUCK!"

I nearly put my fist into the wall, but caught myself at the last instant. I instinctively knew that I’d need both hands for what was coming. Instead I grabbed the ring off the duffel and stalked into the bathroom. I almost – almost – threw the ring into the toilet and flushed it, but again caught myself at the last instant. I don’t know why I stopped that time, but instead I slipped the ring into my pocket after a few moments of staring at it, then went back into the main room and opened the duffel.

Inside was what were obviously a handgun case, a pair of long-gun cases, several boxes of ammunition, and a sheathed machete. If the handwritten labels on the boxes were anything to go by, they were custom handloads. I thought I recognized the writing on the labels, but didn’t recognize it. Again, blame the booze. There was also a manilla envelope with the words “SONNY – IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ!” scrawled on the front in the same handwriting as the ammo boxes. I opened the envelope, pulled out the small stack of papers, and started reading.

_Sonny,_

_Okay, first off, let me say that this whole mess is a load of bullcrap, and if I’m cursing than you know I think it stinks! Oh, this is Milo Anderson out of Cazador, by the way. Anyway, I found out about the mess your in and, well, I honestly don’t know what came over Earl. This is completely out of character for him. He hasn’t outright turned his back on a fellow Hunter in... well, for as long as I’ve known him, anyway. And that’s a long time. Yeah, you messed up, but I don’t think there’s any way you could have realized you messed up, and even if you did, Hunter’s don’t hang each other out to dry like this. So I’m definitely going behind his back with this (don’t tell him, please!) and figured you could use some help._

_The goodies in the back are leftovers from a little project Earl had me put together in the... geez... guess the late 80’s or early 90’s. We had a Hunter on the Seattle team wind up in trouble with some Fey, so Earl had me whip these babies up. Chad was able to get everything worked out with the elves, so we never ended up needing them, but I decided to keep them just in case. Lucky you, I guess. Or not. Sorry. :-(_

_Anyway, all of the ammo is subcaliber cold-iron flechettes loaded in sabots. The shotgun shells are just standard sabot slugs, but I don’t know if you have a shotgun with a rifled barrel with you, so that’s why I sent the Remington. It’s an older model, back from when Big Green actually made really good guns, and I’ve worked it over and slicked it up myself._

_The rifle and handgun ammo’s all finned-stabilized, like they use in tank shells. The rifle’s technically chambered for .358 Winchester, but it’s smoothbore so don’t try shooting regular ammo in there, won’t work. Never could get the ammo to feed reliably from any kind of repeater, so the rifle’s single-shot. Sorry. :-(. Same deal with the derringer, it’s technically .45 Long Colt but smoothbore._

_The shotgun sights are zeroed at 100 yards, but since the slugs are lighter weight and higher velocity than regular lead slugs, they’ll shoot flatter than normal. The irons and the scope on the rifle are both regulated for 300. Again, nice and flat shooting. The derringer... I didn’t get the barrels all regulated as close as I wanted to – Chad got his situation worked out before I had time to – but they’ll group minute-of-average-size-humanoid-chest out to about 50 yards or so. Sorry again. :-(_

_The machete’s regular carbon steel, but with a cold iron inlay. Should work just fine on selkie or whatever fey they send after you._

_Hope these work for you. I mean, I know they’ll work (pretty sure, anyways) but I mean that I hope they’re enough to get you out of this mess._

_I hope you don’t mind, but I’m praying REALLY REALLY REALLY hard for you._

_-Milo Ivan Anderson_

I pulled the cases out and opened them. Just as Milo had promised, the shotgun was a Remington 870 Police Magnum with rifle sights. Eighteen-inch barrel with a full-length mag tube, and a side saddle that held six shells mounted to the receiver. The rifle was a Ruger No. 1 single shot with, again as promised, traditional iron sights and a one-to-six Trijicon AccuPoint scope with a mil-dot reticle (along with a note from Milo saying that the scope wasn’t original, but he’d swapped it out since the fixed four-power he’d originally put on it wasn’t as useful, blah blah blah, promised it was zeroed, and a holdover chart for the reticle), a Rhodesian-style shooting sling, and a cuff on the buttstock with loops for nine rounds of ammunition. And the “pistol” – and I use the term loosely – was a massive four-barreled derringer that looked like something I’d seen in a Forgotten Weapons YouTube video once years ago. There was a leather belt holster for the derringer on an old-west style gunbelt, a tactical sling for the Remington and bandoleers for rifle and shotgun ammo.

Okay. I was in business. Or at least, now I had a fighting chance against the selkie when they came for me. For all the good that would do me. But what was the point? I had nowhere to go, no one to go to. Hunting had been my life, MHI had been my family, Team Spooky had been my brothers and sisters, and Odette had been the only woman – the only person – I’d ever loved. That was gone. All of it. So what was left? Just some guns, a house, and an old car. And none of that really felt worth living for.

No. Fuck that. I wouldn’t have lived through childhood with that attitude. I’d found a new family once. I could do it again. I _would_ do it again. I just had to deal with the selkies first. So I got to work

First thing I did was load the shotgun. I figured that would be the most useful since it was the only repeater of the bunch. The shells looked like normal sabot slugs, only the projectile was a reddish-gray cone. The red was probably rust from years of storage. I hoped they’d still be effective. Six shells in the tube, six on the sidesaddle, the rest on the bandolier. 

Next came the rifle. Milo was right: the cartridges did look like mini tank shells. I threw a cartridge into the chamber, closed the action, put the safety on, got the sling adjusted so I could use it as a shooting aid, then stuffed nine shells into the loops on the butt cuff and the rest on the bandoleer. I repeated the process for the four-shot derringer, then pulled off my holster and mag pouches so I could put on the gun belt. I practiced the draw a few times. I wasn’t as fast or as smooth as with my Bren Ten, but that would come with time. Four shots of .45 Long Colt – even loaded hotter than normal per the label on the box – wasn’t quite as reassuring as fourteen-plus-one of 10mm, but at least they’d work against the selkie and their Fey allies. Maybe. I hoped. If the surface rust (and I hoped it was just surface rust) hadn’t ruined the projectile’s effectiveness.

I sat back down in the chair, this time with the shotgun across my lap and the derringer digging into my side. Shit. Whoever’d designed this cheap-ass easy chair certainly hadn’t had monster hunters or gunslingers in mind. I looked around for my glass of shine but couldn’t find it... right, I’d smashed it against the wall. Shit. How could I forgotten? Must’ve been more buzzed than I thought. Oh well, whatever. I took a big swig of ‘shine straight for the jar and resumed my wait for the bitter end.

The end came with another knock at the door. Still not angry: this time it was frantic, urgent.

“Ser Michael?!” A woman’s voice said through the door in a thick quasi-Gaelic accent. “Are you in there?! Please, please permit me entrance!”

It was Rìchnea. Princess Rìchnea the Selkie of Clan SomelongGaelicsoundingnameIcannotpronounce. The same shape-shifting bitch who’d gotten me into this fine mess.

Shit.


	2. Chapter 2

“Quickly, Ser Michael, we must— oh...”

I’m not sure why I opened the door or what Rìchnea was expecting when I did, but finding herself nose-to-muzzles with my new Selkie-slaying derringer certainly wasn’t it. “... what... what is this?”

“Four barrels of cold iron fuck-off,” I snarled. “So fuck off.”

“I... here?! Ser Michael, that would be most improper, not to mention obscene...” I rolled my eyes.

“God damn it, how long did you live among us humans again?!” Meaning how long had Martin Godwin, aka the psycho asshole I’d shot back when this whole mess had started, kept her as his prisoner. It had been six years, for the record. “It’s a saying! Means ‘vamoose’ or ‘get lost’ or ‘beat it’ or ‘scram’ or ‘make like a tree and leave.’ Basically, GO! AWAY!” My snarling scowl deepened. “Unless you’re deliberately trying to get me killed. Which given the way my week’s been going so far, I wouldn’t put past you.”

“What? Ser Michael, I would never—”

“You might never, but your clan certainly would when they find out you were here!” I kept the derringer pointed at her face. I was so pissed, and gripping the butt so hard, that the front sight was starting to shake. Or maybe that was the booze.

“I.. I fear I do not understand.”

“What a shock,”

“I am sorry?”

“You not understanding is what got you into this situation to begin with, isn’t it? So let me spell it out for you: man, woman, unmarried, clandestine rendezvous, cheap motel room. Has a certain implication here amongst us humans. You finally starting to follow?”

Rìchnea’s alabaster cheeks turned ashen as said implication hit like the proverbial ton of bricks.

“Oh! Oh, Ser Michael, forgive me! I did not think—”

“Yeah, no surprise there. Not thinking seems to be a favorite habit of yours. ‘S what got you – and me – into this whole mess to begin with, inint it?”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, then went wide as she came to a seemingly horrifying conclusion.

“You are intoxicated?!”

“Nooooooo, shit” I drew the first word out maybe a bit too long, “What was your first clue, Princess? And don’t fuckin’ tell me off over it. The way my week’s gone – thanks entirely to you I might add – I’d say I’ve earned a few drinks.”

“Oh no.” Rìchnea was ignoring my ranting, to my increasing annoyance. “No, no, no, no. This cannot be. Not now. There is no time!”

She managed to duck under my line of fire and brush past me into the motel room before I could squeeze off a shot. That was entirely because selkie can move faster than humans and had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was a couple sheets to the wind.

“Hey! What the hell d’ya think you’re doing?” I lunged after her, grabbing at her arm, but she managed to stay ahead of my grasp. She had a smartphone in her hand – where the hell had she gotten that? – and was frantically asking Siri or Google or whoever to give her cures for alcohol intoxication in humans. I didn’t catch what the answer it gave her was, I was too busy trying to grab her and get her out of the motel room (without success, obviously), but whatever the phone told her she must not have liked, because she shoved it back into the thick grey fur coat she was wearing (selkie’s coats have pockets? Who knew?) and turned to me, a desperate expression written across her delicate features.

“Ser Michael, there is no time! We must go! We must flee!”

“Oh _hell_ no! I’m not goin’ _anywhere_ with you!”

“You do not understand! You must flee!” she implored, “My people know you are here! They are coming for you—”

“And let me guess, they’re gonna kill me when they get here, right?” She nodded and opened her mouth to probably beg me to run away with her, but I cut her off before she could say anything. “Well guess what, Your Royal Pain In The Highness, I already had that figured out, and to be honest, I don’t give a fuck. Bring ‘em on.”

“Bring them... but, but they shall kill you!”

“Yeah, I know, and I don’t give fuck. They wanna kill me, let ‘em.”

“I... Ser Michael, I... I do not... _why?!_ ”

“Because what’s the fuckin’ point of livin’ when you don’t have anything left to live for? And don’t you dare say ‘live for you.’ I don’t _want_ you! You _ruined my fucking life!_ You took _everything_ from me: my job, my friends, the _woman I loved!_ All I want from you is to fuck off and _LEAVE! ME! THE! FUCK! ALONE!_ ”

If I hadn’t been so drunk and so pissed off, the heartbroken look that washed over her would’ve made me feel like the world’s biggest asshole. But I was so drunk and so pissed off, so all I felt was righteous satisfaction.

“You mean, you _wish_ to die?!” she finally managed to stammer out.

“Hell yeah. But I’m not gonna go quietly. Your people want me dead? I’m gonna make ‘em work for it. My end’s gonna be worthy of the old-timey warrior poets. They’re gonna sing songs about it in a few centuries. And...” I pointed the derringer at her face again, “...unless you feel like goin’ down in a blaze of glory with me, I suggest you go on and get the hell out of here.”

“And why, pray tell, is my sister in danger of dying a death worthy of being recorded by our clan’s scribes?”

I whirled around towards the new voice – a man’s voice, with a thick Celtic-sounding accent – and brought the derringer to bear on the intruder. How in the hell had he managed to get in without me hearing him get the door open? I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk... but apparently drunk enough to forget that I hadn’t closed and barricaded the door after Rìchnea had forced her way inside. _Way to go, dumbass_. Then I got a good look at the intruder and damn near dropped my gun in shock because holy shit it was James Bond!

Okay, he wasn’t actually James Bond, obviously, and he wasn’t one of the actors who played the character, but he sure as hell could’ve passed for 007 at way more than a glance. He was tall, maybe half a head taller than me, and had dark hair, not blonde like Moore or Craig, and the best way I could describe his face would be a ruggedly handsome hybrid of Connery and Brosnan, he gave off a confident, dangerous vibe, and he was wearing what looked like a very expensive tuxedo...

...underneath a thick grey fur coat. And he had the same accent as Rìchnea. And he’d referred to her as “my sister.”

Oooooooooooooooooohhhh sssshhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit....

I suddenly felt very, very, _very_ sober.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SIGNIFICANT ADDITION to this chapter because, like a moron, I forgot to include some REALLY important info the first time around! New material begins after the line starting with "'Of course. You humans and your pathetic fears and insecurities make it so easy.'"
> 
> Sorry this one took so long to get put together. Chalk it up to a combination of being run ragged at work (December was a CRAZY month!), lingering illness (not COVID, thank God), depression, and just general laziness. Updating will probably be sporadic, but hopefully it would be another another 3-4 weeks (or however long it's been) until I can get the next chapter out. Thank you for sticking with me.
> 
> And I keep forgetting to post this, but if you want an idea of what Sonny's derringer looks like... like I said, it's like something out of a Forgotten Weapons video. Specifically, this one: <https://youtu.be/WWGII108sOU>

“Edhémhnart!” Rìchnea gasped, “What are you doing here?!”

“I have come to find you, little sister,” Edhémhnart said with a wide smile that I thought looked a little of the fake side, but I chalked that up to my still being drunk (despite suddenly having a much clearer head), pissed off, and generally predisposed to not like the guy. “As well as to aid you and your betrothed in any way that I am able.”

“Ed-hem-heart, right?” I said. Edhémhnart looked over at me, a look flashing across his face that seemed to indicate he was disgusted that I would dare speak to him, but again I was not exactly thinking perfectly straight just yet. And he might also have been slightly perturbed at me for pointing a four-barreled monstrosity of a handgun at (or, okay, in the general vicinity of) his face.

“It is ‘Edhémhnart,’” he corrected politely.

“Yeah, whatever, but I can’t pronounce that sober, and I’m definitely not sober right now, so I’m just gonna call you ‘Eddie,’ and if you don’t like it, Mister Forty-Five-Caliber-Cold-Iron-Sabots here says ‘tough shit.’” I gestured with the handgun. The look on Eddie’s face made it abundantly clear that he absolutely despised his new nickname, but he got the message loud and clear and so didn’t say anything. “So, Eddie,” I continued, “Which side of the family are you on?”

“I fear I do not understand, Ser Michael. We are one clan, united. We do not have sides...”

“I mean are you on the side of the family that wants to kill me for daring to sully your clan’s bloodline with my human nastiness, or on the side that wants to kill me for daring to sully your clan’s honor by refusing to wed your sister—”

“Half-sister,” Rìchnea corrected, seemingly automatically, but I ignored her.

“—even though I’ve made it quite clear that I did _not_ intend to propose and that said actions are _not_ considered a proposal in the human world and you people are at least supposed to have a modicum of understanding of us filthy humans and how we do things.”

“I see,” Eddie mused, not bothering to hide his amusement.

“So which is it?” I demanded.

“You misunderstand, Ser Michael,” Eddie chuckled. “I do not intend you harm. I have come to offer you aid.”

“Yeah, bull shit you have. I may be drunk, but I’m not that drunk. Why the fuck would want to help me? Or maybe a better question would be ‘what’s the catch?’”

“What? Am I not permitted to kindly offer aid simply from the kindness of my own heart? I believe that is the correct human idiom, yes?”

I threw back my head and laughed.

“Yeah, pull the other one. It’s got bells on it.”

“I fear that I do not understand.”

“He means that he does not believe you in the slightest, Edhémhnart,” Rìchnea explained absently as she kept on fiddling with her smartphone. I fought (and lost) the urge to roll my eyes. Seemed it didn’t matter what species you were; rich airheaded bimbos would always be glued to their smartphone.

“And what,” Eddie glowered, his voice taking on a dangerous edge, “pray tell, have I done to you that would make you question my honor?”

“You personally, nothing. But I’ve had dealings with your kind before. You _never_ do anything out of the goodness and kindness of your anything! There’s always a catch. You always have an angle, an ulterior motive. So what’s yours?”

“Ah.” His voice lost that edge. “I see you have familiarized yourself with our peoples’ ways.”

“Comes with the job. Or I guess I should say it came with the former job. Now start spillin’ your guts or I’ll spill ‘em for you.” I lowed my point of aim from his face to his abdomen.”

“Oh is there really a need for such barbarism?” he signed, gesturing at the pistol.

“Yes. Now talk.”

“Very well. You see, like yourself, I too find myself in a rather unfortunate situation.” I scoffed, or maybe snorted, and his face darkened, but he continued. “As I am sure your are aware, Selkie Clans are matriarchal in governance, and Rìchnea is the only female heir to the _Ceancinidh_.”

“And how is that your problem, exactly? No, wait, let me guess: you’re the oldest male in the family, so once Godwin selkie-napped her, you became heir to the throne.”

“ _Ceancindh_ ,” Rìchnea and Eddie corrected together.

“Whatever,” I shrugged. “So you were heir to the throne, but now that she’s back in the picture you’re out of a job. I fail to see how that’s... wait, yeah, never mind. I brought her back, so it is my problem. So you want me to... what, exactly?”

“I’m afraid you misunderstand the situation, Ser Michael, though I cannot blame you for such. It is, after all, the course of action that most humans would like choose in such a situation. But no, the truth is quite the opposite.”

“Quit running your yapper and get to the point,” I growled, bristling at the ‘human’ insult.

“Very well,” he sighed. “I recognize that I am not fit to rule. Rìchnea had been trained for the post since birth, I was not. And as the Clans are matriarchal in governance—”

“Which you just said.”

“Yes. Which I just said. And as our Clans are matriarchal in governance, the other clans are unlikely to accept a male _Ceancinidh_ , which will undermine our clan’s standing and may well lead to war.”

“So what the hell does any of that have to do with me?”

“I am coming to that. Many of our clan elders fear that Rìchnea herself is unfit to rule, that she has spent too long amongst the humans and has become corrupted by your... er... ways.” He couldn’t help but glance towards Rìchnea and I couldn’t help but follow his gaze. The bimbo was still fooling around with that stupid smartphone. Now she was holding it up in front of her face like she was taking a selfie.

“And you want me to convince them otherwise,” I surmised.

“Indeed.”

“Gonna be a hard sell.” I ignored the dirty look Rìchnea shot my way.

“Not as hard as you believe,” Eddie countered. “My clan Elders are far less familiar with your ways than you are with theirs, and we Selkie live for many of your centuries. Six of your years may be a long while by your human standards, but for my people it is barely any time at all.” Help me convince the Elders that Rìchnea is a worthy _Ceancinidh_ and in return, my last act as presumptive _Ceancinidh_ shall be to place the Clan within your debt, and then absolve that debt by dissolving your betrothal to Rìchnea and clearing you of your oaths and obligations to her and to the Clan.”

“You can do that?”

“Aye,” he nodded.

“He can do that?” I asked Rìchnea.

“It is unusual, and has not been done for many centuries, but according to ancient customs, I believe he can.”

“I...” Wow. This was huge. But at the same time, seemed too good to be true....

“Think on this quickly, Ser Michael,” Eddie intoned. “My Clan is coming for you, and when they find you, they will not show you such mercies and I shall be unable to protect you. I advise you to accept my offer.”

 _He has a point_ , I thought to myself, _Clan Watchamacallit does know where I am. Rìchnea said so, and she wouldn’t lie. Would she?_

My head felt like it was descending into a fog. The adrenaline spike that Eddie’s arrival must’ve been wearing off, so I was probably feeling the booze again. Damn, I shouldn’t have hit the ‘shine so hard... But that’s neither here nor there. Eddie’s offer was a good one, and what he said jived with what I remembered about Selkies from Newbie Training. Though granted we hadn’t spent much time on Selkies, since while they’re technically on the PUFF, they generally avoid humans, so MHI policy was to leave them alone. And obviously I’d violated the shit out of that policy and holy shit my mind was wandering again. How much booze did I drink?

Right. Right. The offer. If Eddie really could do what he was claiming... and again, if Rìchnea was vouching for him, I had no reason to believe he couldn’t... this would solve all my problems. Well, not all my problems – I doubted he could get me my job back or convince Odette to take me back – but at the very least he would get the Selkies to not kill me. I could rebuild my life, just like I’d done before, and I’d actually be alive to rebuild it.

_Indeed, Michael. What do you have to lose?_

Yeah, what did I have.... wait, what?!

“What the fuck?!” I gasped. I looked up – I hadn’t realized my gaze had wandered downwards – just in time to see a look of disbelief and... what that horror... blink across Eddie’s face. “The fuck did you do to me? You were in my head?!” Eddie’s calm, composed expression slipped, again, just for a second, as he realized he’d been made. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD!”

In a heartbeat I snapped the derringer up, squared the sights on Eddie’s face, and pulled through the long and heavy double-action trigger. The gun rocked back hard in my hand. The cold-iron sabot sailed through empty air before smashing through the room’s front window. Because Eddie had already moved: leaping out of the bullet’s path and then coming back around to smash oversize pistol from my hand and then backhand me across the room.

Right. I’d forgotten how fast Selkie, like all Fey, can move when they draw on their powers. That thought had barely finished flashing through my head before I smashed into the rear wall hard enough to leave a human-sized dent.

Ow.

I barely had time to start falling from the dent to the floor when a shape appeared before me – Eddie – and a pair of hands clamped around my throat like twin vices. I dimly thought I heard Rìchnea screaming.

“How?!” Eddie demanded, his eyes full of fiery rage. “How did you discover me?”

“You... call... called me... Michael,” I managed to wheeze out.

“That is your name!” he bellowed.

“Yeah,” I grinned despite the pain and the lack of air, “Yeah, but... that’s not... what I... call... myself. Now... what... what the... fuck... did... you...”

“Do?” he sneered. “I ‘did’ nothing. Only attempted to give your thoughts a gentile push in the direction I required they take.”

“You...” realization dawned. “You... man... manip... you fucked... with my team’s... heads. With Odette’s... head.”

“Of course. You humans and your pathetic fears and insecurities make it so easy. Even the one you call Harbinger was pathetically simple to manipulate. I feared he would be immune from my persuasions, but I was quite mistaken. He was nearly as easy to influence as the pathetic mewling quim you thought capable of loving you!”

“BASTARD!” I slugged him across the face. He barely flinched. I bit back a scream: it felt like I’d broken my hand on his jaw. He grinned, like he found my struggling funny. Didn’t stop him from slamming me into the wall again.

“So...” I wheezed, “You fucked... your... Elders’.... heads... too. Right?”

“Oh no. Our minds are to strong to be influenced by such magic. Though I do know my family well enough to sew the seeds of doubt with word alone.”

“Godwin... then.”

“Indeed. Though I must confess he took rather little convincing. Disgusting, really.” I couldn’t argue with that.

“And... you set... her... up... to get... snatched...”

“But of course.”

“And then I... fucked.... your plan. So... what... now? Murder...suicide? I ki... kill her then my... my... my.”

“You are indeed a rather clever human, Mister Crockett.”

“And I... not... even... sober.”

“But I fear you usefulness has come to an end. It is proper in your society to ask the condemned if he has any last words, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you have them, I would hear them now.”

“Fuck... you!” I reached up and plunged my thumbs into Eddie’s eyes.

In my experience as a Hunter, it doesn’t matter what species it is or how powerful they are, stick something in their eye socket and they fucking feel it. Selkies are no different. Eddie let out an ear-splitting roar of pain and released his hold on me and his hands instinctively flew to his injured face. I dropped onto my knees, took in two huge, gasping lungfulls of air, then head-butted Eddie as hard as I could in the crotch. He doubled over, though I wasn’t sure whether it was in pain or surprise. I almost tried uppercutting him in the jaw, but caught myself at the last second: Fey recover quickly, and I was already pressing my luck. So I dove between his legs – sending him tumbling literally head-over-heels in the process – and scrambled on all fours towards the duffel bag full of guns.

“Rìchnea!” I called, looking around from her as I grabbed the bag and zipped it up.

“Here!” she was on the other side of the bed: her smartphone in one hand and the derringer in the other.

“Gun!” She tossed the derringer to me. I awkwardly caught it with both hands, no easy feat considering I was still holding the duffel in one hand. “Go! Get to my car!” She nodded and raced out the motel door. I was right on her heels, and I knew that Eddie would be right on mine. I spun and fired a snap-shot from the hip as I passed through the door, sending Eddie diving for cover and buying us the second we’d needed.

I’d left my Testarossa back in Stonebrook. I loved the classic Ferrari, but it was just too damn conspicuous for a man trying to stay under the radar. So I’d brought The Beast – my customized, hot-rodded Mercury Grand Marquis – instead. Much more inconspicuous and, pained as I was to admit this – probably a higher-performance automobile than my thirty-three year old Italian masterpiece. I fished my keys out of my pocket and hit the unlock button on the fob. Just in time, since Rìchnea was already tearing at the front passenger door handle. She dove in as I ripped open the rear driver’s side door and tossed the duffel in, then slammed that door shut and leapt into the driver’s seat. The big V8 caught on the first try. Eddie was just coming through the room’s front door as I slapped it into Drive and planted the gas pedal. Fey might be fast, but they’re not that fast. Or else he wasn’t expecting my old grandma-mobile to leap from the parking space like a bat out of hell. Either way, we left him in the proverbial dust as we raced out of the parking lot.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for another short chapter. Originally planned on making it longer, but this felt like a natural stopping point.

The Beast’s supercharger screamed as we tore through the night. The motel had been off of what used to be part of the old U.S. Highway system back before the interstates were a thing. But it had been decommissioned years ago and now was just another sleepy two-lane road that wound up through the hills.

We were fucked. No two ways about it. Best-case scenario was that Eddie was operating alone, so I only had to deal with him. In addition to all my other problems, of course. Worst-case scenario was that he had a serious number of followers backing his coup attempt, which meant that there were three factions of Selkies, not two, that wanted my head on a pike. And my luck has a proven track record of _never_ allowing me to experience a best-case scenario.

Not that it mattered, since I still had at least two factions looking to kill me, and I still had nowhere to go and no allies to turn to for help. Just Rìchnea, and she was totally useless in addition to being the cause of all my misery.

No, that wasn’t fair. Eddie had set her up just like he’d set me up. Only his plans for her had been infinitely crueler and more horrific. And since she’d overheard Eddie’s confession, she was marked for death just like I was. I shouldn’t – couldn’t – take my anger out on her.

Still didn’t change the fact that she was, from what I had seen so far, totally useless in a fight. And she didn’t exactly appear to be the brightest bulb in the drawer, either. Yeah, she was definitely going to be a royal load. Dead weight. Smart thing to do would be to pull the car over, kick her out, and take off. I had better odds of surviving this without her. But said odds had already been infinitesimally small before she’d found me, and...

I took my eyes off the road just long enough to glance at her. She was shaking, partly from coming down off the adrenaline high of our escape and partly from the sobs that she was trying to keep from wracking her body. Her pale cheeks had gone flush and tears were streaming down her eyes, but she was doing an admirable job of trying not to cry.

God damn it. Why the hell do I always have to be such a sucker for damsels in distress?

“I’m sorry.” Rìchnea jumped as my voice broke the silence.

“You are sorry?” What have you to be sorry for?”

“For blowing up at you back there the way I did. You didn’t deserve it. None of this is your fault. Eddie fucked you over too. Worse than he did me. And you tried to help me out and I fucking threw it all back in your face and told you to get fucked. And even if it was your fault, I still shouldn’t have treated you like that.” I let out a long sigh. “God, I swore I’d never become like him, but...”

“But what? Become like who?”

“Mirror mirror on the wall, I am my father after all.”

“Your father? What... what does he have to do with any of this?”

“Nothing, besides my bad attitude and affinity for booze. And before you ask, I’m saving that particular story for a bright and sun-shiny OH SHIT!”

As I guided The Beast around a long, sweeping right-hand turn, the high-beams suddenly illuminated a seemingly incongruous sight: the biggest damn grey seal I’d ever heard of, let alone seen, laying square across the center of the road. It was big enough that it nearly blocked both lanes. I hit the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right and found myself wishing that I’d brought the Testarossa after all, because even though I’d upgraded the The Beast’s steering and suspension, it still handled too much like a big land barge.

The Beast bounced as it swerved onto the shoulder, managing (by some miracle) to clear the giant water mammal. Until the seal, somehow, literally leapt forward and headbutted the side of the car as we thundered past. Rìchnea screamed and I let out a long string of expletives as the impact lifted the big Mercury up onto its two right wheels. For a heart-stopping second, I was certain that the car was going to roll over. But by some miracle (though the fact that the two of us instinctively leaned left may have helped) The Beast flopped back down onto all four wheels. Rìchnea let out a whooping cheer as I pulled the car back onto the highway.

“You did it!” she cried.

“Yeah, almost,” I replied with a confidence that I didn’t feel. The impact had badly damaged The Beast. I could see that my door had been dented inwards, and I was certain that the rear driver’s side door had been too. The car wanted to wander badly to the left to the point where I was having to actively fight to keep it on the correct lane. Given how deep the doors were bent in, I suspected that the chassis had been bent. Not that going up on two wheels had done the steering or suspension any favors, since they’d never been designed for that. And I was pretty sure I’d felt the car bottom out when it came back down onto all four wheels, so who knew what kind of damage the drivetrain had suffered. I risked a quick brake check. They were slow coming on and dragged when I let off of them. And then the warning lights on the dashboard started to light up one after the other.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Car’s fucked.”

“What?!”

“The hit-and-run back there fucked the car up pretty bad. It’s dying. I don’t know how much longer it’s gonna last –”

No sooner had the words left my mouth then there was a loud metallic _BANG!_ under the car. The engine immediately began revving to the redline while the speedometer began to slowly fall towards zero.

“Aaaaand that was the driveshaft breaking in half. Should’ve kept my stupid mouth shut.”

“What? What does you speaking have to do with –”

“Forget it. Point is the car just died and can’t go much further. Get ready to bail out. When I say so, bail out and start heading uphill. I’ll grab the guns out of the back and be right behind you.

The road was following a cut in the wooded hillside. Where exactly we were, I had no idea. But it seemed as good a place as any for a last stand.

“Uphill? But we will be faster downhill.”

“And I’ll have better line of sight to shoot Eddie and his mooks if we go uphill. You go downhill if you want. I’m going uphill so I can kill the shit out of those motherfuckers. Now get ready.” The road began to slope upwards; The Beast began to slow. I slammed on the brakes, yanked on the parking brake, and released my seatbelt and threw my door open. “GO!”

Rìchnea leapt from the passenger’s seat and took off running into the woods. Uphill. Thank God. I paused just long enough to grab the duffel bag from where it had fallen onto the floor in the passenger compartment and sling the carry strap over my shoulder, then I sprinted after her.


	5. Chapter 5

The tree line was twenty, maybe thirty yards from the road, and not particularly thick. I sprinted a good twenty yards into it before stopping, dropping into a crouch, and fishing the rifle and its ammo bandolier from the duffel bag. I loaded the single-shot Ruger and brought it rifle to my shoulder.

“What are you doing?!”

“SHIT!” I reflexively went for my sidearm – and damn near dropped the rifle in surprise – when Rìchnea hissed her question in my ear. “Dammit, what is wrong with you?!”

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? Waiting for our friend with the hard head to come examine his handiwork.”

“What?”

“I’m waiting for the selkie that tried to headbutt us off the road to come check out the damage he did to our car, and then come try to find us.”

“And then you will kill him?!” It sounded like the very thought horrified her.

“What do you think he’s gonna try to do to us?” I raised the rifle back to my shoulder and put the scope’s crosshairs over the hood of the car just in time to see an enormous man in the expected thick gray fur coat appear in the illumination cast by the wrecked Mercury’s headlights. If Eddie looked like James Bond, this SOB looked like a henchman from a James Bond movie. At least six foot six from the look of him, built like a brick wall, bald as an egg, and a face that I doubted even his mother could love. That kind of put paid to the part of the myth that all selkie are ethereally beautiful.

He also had a sword with a very long, very nasty-looking blade in his hand.

“Póghéibho!” Rìchnea gasped.

“Let me guess, one of Eddie’s people?” I kept my voice just above a whisper.

“That is not his proper given name, you know,” Thankfully, Rìchnea took the hint, even if she was being idiotically pedantic.

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t pronounce his actual name. Plus, I don’t like him and I’m kind of an asshole, so ‘Eddie’ he is.”

“You are insufferable, incorrigible, and rude.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Now is that one of Eddie’s people or not?”

“He is one of _Edhémhnart’s_ close supporters,” she confirmed, putting an excessive amount of deliberate emphasis on her half-brother’s proper given name.

“Good to know.” I flicked the rifle’s safety off and centered the crosshairs over the center of Whateverthemook’snamewas’s (and _God_ was I sick of these long unpronounceable Celtic names!) whiskey barrel of a chest. He really did look like a henchman from a James Bond movie. Like the big dude from _The Spy Who Loved Me_. Not Jaws, the other one: the one Roger Moore threw off a roof in Cairo. What the hell was that character’s name again?

“Ah, who cares?” I murmered to myself as I let out a long, slow, deliberate breath and pressed the trigger. The sear broke like the proverbial glass rod and the rifle roared as it spat its cold-iron dart into the night. Rìchnea screamed and clamped her hands over her ears at the sound. The recoil wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting, but it still pushed the rifle up and off target. I brough the rifle back down and put the scope back on Póghéibho. He was looking down, staring at the red circle that was rapidly expanding across his torso. Then he fell face-first onto the pavement, like the proverbial marionet with cut strings, and didn’t move again.

“You killed him!” Rìchnea shrieked.

“Yeah. Like I said, what do you think he was gonna do to us with that sword?” I yanked the loading lever down and forward, dropping the breech block and ejecting the spent casing, then plucked a fresh cartridge, slid it into the chamber, and closed the action.

“How... how could you?! He was defenseless!”

“Yeah, right. With that big-ass sword, and how fast I’ve seen your kind move? He’d have been slicing & dicing us in ten seconds flat if he figured out where we were. Now come on.” I rose to my feet and pulled her up with me, a move that she vehemently protested. “We gotta get moving.”

“Moving? To where?”

“Anywhere but here. Eddie’s not dumb; no way he’d send that guy out here to take us out by himself. Whoever else is out there probably knows roughly where we are and are closing in on us right now.”

“Quite intelligent for a human, Ser Michael,” an unfamiliar voice said in that increasingly – and unwelcomely – familiar Gaelic-sounding accent.

I spun towards the voice, snapping my rifle up. Before I could find a target, something slammed into the rifle and sent it spinning off into the darkness. I went for the derringer, but something else hammered into my back before I could clear the holster. I found myself face-down in the grass. Somebody was screaming. It sounded like Rìchnea.

I tried to lunge towards the duffel – and the shotgun and machete that still lay within – but I was kicked back down. My ankles and wrists were seized in what felt like industrial vices, and my arms were wrenched behind my back and my wrists bound with something as a fabric bag was shoved over my head. The bag must have been treated with something – the selkie version of chloroform, maybe – because it suddenly became impossible to breathe and almost as hard to think as I found myself being smothered in a final, all-consuming blackness.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the moment when Sonny's life began going south.

“Sonny? You okay?”

“Yeah. Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

The look that Odette Morgan (ex-Naval Aviator, Top Gun graduate, current MHI Hunter/attack pilot, and my girlfriend of two years) gave me made it clear that she didn’t believe me.

“Are you sure? You look a little sick.”

“My ears are bothering me a little from the flight, but other than that, I’m fine.”

“Your ears are bothering you? Really? Mike, we’ve flow _much_ rougher flights than that in horrible turbulence, and in _way_ shittier aircraft.”

“Shannon will kill you for insulting her babies like that.”

“Whatever. Point is, your ears never bothered you on any of those flights, and this trip was smooth as glass. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong! I’m fine! Really!’’ She gave me another pointed look, but I just gave her an innocent (and, I’m ashamed to admit, thoroughly unconvincing) smile, so she brushed a few wayward strands of red hair away from her eyes and turned away from me to look out the window and take in the sights of Center City Philadelphia.

“Whatever,” she snorted, “just don’t puke in here. It’s a nice car.”

It was, in fact, a new(ish) Rolls-Royce Phantom that I’d hired for the evening, so “nice” was one hell of an understatement. And Odette was right (as always): I did look like I was going to puke, but my ears were perfectly fine. The truth was, at that moment, I was terrified beyond words.

It was stupid, really. I had no reason to be scared at all, let alone trying to keep myself from spewing my lunch all over the inside of a quarter-million-plus dollar car. I was a Monster Hunter, for crying out loud! I’d faced down chupacabra, zombies, wights, Akkadian storm beasts, manananggals, vampires, giant spiders, and a freakin’ _balrog_ of all things! Hell, I’d even stared down Agent Franks once! Sure, I’d blinked, but whatever, you get the point. But ask the woman I love to marry me? Terrifying beyond rational thought. Partly because I was afraid that I’d make an utter fool of myself while attempting to pop the question, but mostly because I couldn’t shake that nagging, lingering voice in the back of my head that kept insisting that she’d say “no.”

I’d convinced her to take the trip by pointing out (repeatedly) that we’d never actually been on a real date – that one lunch at Martin’s Diner in downtown Stonebrook didn’t count because a) we weren’t officially a couple at that point and b) her crazy ex-boyfriend had interrupted us and turned it into a case – and that we each had an insane amount of vacation time saved up, so why not take a long weekend and have some fun? The fact that our two-year anniversary just happened to fall on that long weekend was simply a fortunate coincidence. At least, that’s what I’d told Odette when she’d realized it. What had sealed the deal was my getting us a dinner reservation on the _Moshulu_ : Odette was a huge fan of Eric Newby’s writing, and the chance to actually stand where Newby once stood, let alone see the setting of _The Last Grain Race_ , was an opportunity that she simply could not pass up.

I’d gone all out for the weekend, starting by chartering a flight from our base at the Pennsylvania Museum of American Arms, Armor, and Air Power to Northeast Philadelphia Airport. I’d actually miscalculated there. Odette was decidedly _not_ impressed by that idea, since the half-hour hop between our base and Philly barely gave the Citation Ultra a chance to stretch its legs. Which was all academic, because I shouldn’t have bothered chartering a plane to begin with: she could fly us there in the Bronco, get us there almost as quickly, _and_ carry almost exactly the same amount of cargo! And, as she had repeatedly reminded me, when she says that she likes to fly, she means as a pilot, not a passenger!

Thankfully, that particular sin was forgiven and forgotten the instant she’d realized that the Rolls-Royce waiting on the tarmac was, in fact, for us. She may or may not have let out a very un-fighter-pilot-like squeal, but I will neither confirm nor deny that one way or the other. The Rolls was going to drop us off on the waterfront at the _Moshulu ,_ and then after what would hopefully be a very romantic dinner followed by an equally-romantic sunset walk along the waterfront, would pick us up and take us to the Rittenhouse Hotel, where I’d booked us a suite. Tomorrow, after breakfast in bed, the Rolls would take us to the Barnes Foundation, and after that we’d walk to the Rodin Museum, and then to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And then, _finally_ , after touring all three museums, we’d stand at the top of the famous “Rocky Steps,” then I’d get down on one knee and ask the woman of my dreams to spend the rest of her life with me.

At least, that was the plan. But like that old maxim goes, “a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen.”

The ride into the city was blessedly uneventful, and traffic was surprisingly light, so we arrived at the _Moshulu_ a full fifteen minutes before our reservation. Thankfully, the hostess was able to seat us early (the hundred-dollar bill I slipped her _might_ have had something to with it) and a waiter arrived almost immediately to take our drink orders. Odette ordered a glass of prosecco while I went with water. I’m not a teetotaler, I just never drink when I’m carrying. The bobtailed 1911 Commander holstered behind my right hip felt almost as heavy as the tiny leather jewelry box inside my suit jacket’s pocket.

Odette waited until the waiter had returned with our drinks and taken our main orders before launching into an interrogation session.

“Okay, spill,” she demanded, “What’s really going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted.

“This,” she gestured around the dining room, “And the plane, and the car, and the hotel...”

“What about them? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong, and it’s all lovely and I really appreciate it, I do, but it all just seems, I don’t know... excessive.”

“Excessive? Remind me again, what do we use for daily drivers?” I had her there, and she knew it: my daily driver was an ’89 Ferrari Testarossa, while hers alternated between a customized Triumph Daytona 675R sport bike, the aforementioned OV-10 Bronco turboprop, and an ex-Republic of Korea Air Force KF-5F Tiger II fighter jet “for when she needed to get someplace in a hurry.”

“Whatever, it’s just all a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Not really. You’re worth it.” I’m not sure if it was the remark itself or the way I oh-so casually dropped it that took her aback, but either way it had the desired effect. “And on top of that, we’ve been together for two years now and this is the first time we’ve ever actually been on a real date.”

“Sonny, please don’t start this again. It’s not your fault. We just haven’t had time before.”

“Exactly, and we have time now and we both know that tomorrow is never guaranteed, especially in our line of work, so I...” I caught myself: I’d accidentally wandered into the short speech I’d planned to make at the museum steps tomorrow. “So I figure, why not enjoy the finer things in life while we still can?”

“Yeah,” she agreed after a few moments’ thought. “Why not?” I couldn’t help but notice a hint of disappointment in her tone and found myself fighting back a smile. Under any other circumstances, I’d hate myself for doing this to her, but I wanted the proposal to be a complete surprise, and if what Shannon, Dominique, and the team’s pilots and ground crew had all told me was accurate, Odette was _really_ hoping that my ultimate motive in planning the trip was to pop the question. And from the look of things, she was now at least partially convinced that that wasn’t going to happen. Perfect.

The waiter arrived a moment later with our appetizers (my Crispy Calamari and her Super California Sushi Roll). That’s when things slowly began to go sideways.

A loud commotion near the entrance suddenly grabbed our attention, along with most everyone else’s in the dining room. And older man was completely flipping his shit all over the poor hostess, demanding to know why he’d been kept waiting “five whole minutes!” for a table even though he _clearly_ had a reservation, and if he had a 6:00 reservation then he _damn well_ expected to be seated by 6:00 and not one second after. I felt my blood start to boil: before I’d joined MHI, I’d spent years working customer service positions where I’d been forced to deal with assholes like him, and by “deal with” I meant stand there, take their abuse, and give them what they want even if it defied the laws of physics because “the customer is always right.” Odette reached across the table and took my hand.

“Ignore him,” she said with a kind and knowing smile.

“Kind of hard to with him screaming like a spoiled toddler like that,” I growled. I looked over Odette’s shoulder again to glare at the asshole. That’s when I saw his companion. She was a tall, statuesque beauty with long red curls that flowed down to her hips. She was wearing a tight black evening dress that hugged her slender hourglass figure and left very little to the imagination despite its conservative neckline, while its high hemline showed off a pair of flawless legs that seemed to stretch for miles. Odette turned around in her seat to see what had grabbed my attention, then turned back and gave me a very dirty look.

“Really?” she hissed. “You take me out to a nice seafood dinner and then ogle every hot redhead that comes through the door?”

“Okay, there’s only one redhead in the entire world that I have any interest whatsoever in ogling. She’s the most beautiful woman in the entire world, and she’s sitting across from me. Sure, that chick’s a looker, but she pales in comparison to you.”

“Yeah, right.” Odette had always been self-conscious about her appearance even though I (and probably every other man, and most women, who’d ever laid eyes on her) thought she was hauntingly beautiful. I made a mental note to gut-shoot Odette's overbearing abusive bitch of a stage-mom if I ever crossed paths with that particular harpy. “Then if you weren’t not ogling her, what the hell were you doing?”

“Take a... no, wait.” The manager had arrived and managed to placate the asshole and was leading him and his companion towards us. “No, don’t look yet. They’re heading this way, probably going to be seated at the empty table on your right. When they sit down, glance over and tell me what’s wrong with the picture.”

I was right: the manager did put the asshole next to us. He was tall and thin, with hair that had obviously been dyed brown that was receding rapidly towards the top of his head, angry brown eyes, and what looked to be a permanent scowl. If he’d been smiling, he would’ve struck me as a sleazy lawyer or used-car salesmen. Probably a lawyer, given how expensive his suit looked. We both watched out of the corner of our eyes as a waiter approached the table and the asshole angrily ordered for both himself and his companion without such much as glancing at a menu.

“Well?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

“You mean besides the fact that he looks old enough to be her grandfather?”

“Yeah, besides that.”

“I don’t think I’m tracking.”

“Back of his chair.”

He’d been carrying a thick silver-grey fur coat over his arm, which he was now draping over the back of his seat. I couldn’t help but notice that he’d left his companion to pull out her own chair. That struck me as odd: since the coat was very obviously cut for a woman’s figure. Why would he carry her coat but not help her with her chair? Hell, why would he be keeping her coat in the first place?

“A fur coat?” Odette whispered, “In June?”

“Bingo,” I whispered back.

“Yeah, that is weird.” We lapsed back into a comfortable silence as we tucked into our appetizers. That silence was abruptly shattered moments later by the angry bellowing of a wild animal.

“WHAT THE _FUCK_ IS THIS?!” The asshole sitting next to us demanded as he leapt to his feet, knocking his chair over and sending that rather beautiful fur coat flying through the air and sprawling across the carpet next to my chair. The poor waiter who’d found himself the subject of the asshole’s sudden rage looked like he was about to wet his pants in fright. Fortunately, he didn’t drop the bottle of wine he’d been attempting to present to the table.

“What’s... is something wrong, Sir?” the waiter managed to stammer out.

“What’s wrong? WHAT’S FUCKING WRONG?! I’ll tell you what the fuck is wrong! I ordered a bottle of your most expensive Zinfandel! And what the fuck did you bring me?”

“Uh, a bottle of 2015 Carol Shelton –”

“I don’t give a _fuck_ who made it or what year it is! IT’S FUCKING RED WINE!”

“Sir?”

“RED! FUCKING! WINE! EVERYONE knows you drink _WHITE WINE_ with fish!”

“Sir? Uh... Zinfandel is a red wine.”

The asshole’s face went beet-red, but before he could explode all over the poor waiter, the manager arrived and asked what the matter was, so the asshole exploded all over him instead. I have to give the manager credit, he kept a level head and didn’t let the asshole phase him while he attempted to calm the situation. The asshole’s companion, meanwhile, had frozen halfway out of her chair, wide-eyed with fear. She looked like she was trying to convince herself to make a break for it, and I personally didn’t blame her: the asshole reminded me an awful lot of my old man on a not-particularly-bad day. But for some strange reason, her eyes were locked on the coat, like she couldn’t decide whether to grab it, run, or grab it and then run.

I’m not sure what made me do it. Maybe because I thought the asshole needed to be put in his place. Maybe because, like I said, the asshole reminded me of my old man and I wished that someone had intervened for me, my brother and my mom back when he used to fly off the handle at us right now. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for beautiful redheads. I slid out of my chair.

“Michael!” Odette hissed, “Don’t!”

“Relax,” I said, flashing her an easy smile, “Much as I’d love to, Mister Scumbucket ain’t worth it.”

I bent down and scooped the coat up off the floor. The asshole was still laying into the manager – who by that point had had enough of his shit and was ordering him to leave or else be arrested, which the asshole wasn’t having, and was daring him to call the cops – so he didn’t notice. Just to make sure, I looped around the opposite side of our table before swinging back towards the asshole’s companion. She’d looked absolutely horrified when I’d grabbed the coat and started to walk off with it, but her hopeful disbelief filled her eyes when I approached and presented the coat to her.

“I think this belongs to you,” I said softly.

“You... truly?” She had an odd accent, like an odd hybrid of Scottish and Irish, but at the same time not like either of those at all.

“Certainly wouldn’t look good on him,” I quipped, jerking my head towards the asshole. She rose from her chair accepted the coat, taking it from me in an almost reverent manner. “Why don’t you get out of here? I’ll get you an Uber, get you wherever you want to go.”

“I... yes. Yes, I would like –”

“WHAT THE _FUCK_ DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” Asshole screeched. We both looked over, the woman’s face going white with terror. The color had left the asshole’s face too: he looked ashen as he stared at us with wide-eyed rage.

“Hey, hey, easy man. Her coat fell on the floor, I didn’t want it to get stepped on or spilled on, so I thought I’d –”

Asshole cut me off with an incoherent scream and threw his jacket open. I mentally kicked myself: I’d been so focused on the fur coat that I’d missed the tell-tale bulge under his suit jacket’s armpit.

“GET DOWN!” I shoved the woman to the floor, then spun back towards the asshole and started going for my own gun. Too late: the asshole had already pulled his massive revolver from its shoulder holster and was leveling it at me. He fired just as I started to draw. I felt a tugging sensation on both of my thighs and knew instinctively that I’d been hit. The asshole wrestled his big gun – it looked like a Taurus Judge – back down from the ferocious recoil. I had my gun out at retention, but couldn’t risk the hip shot: too many people around. I punched the pistol out with both hands, thumb instinctively swiping the safety off as I found my sight picture. He drew a bead on me and fired again as I pumped a pair of Speer Gold Dots into his chest, shifted my aim, and put a third through the bridge of his nose. The light left his eyes and he crumpled into the proverbial heap.

The whole thing was over in five seconds, tops.

I pulled my gun back to retention and scanned the room. Odette was out of her chair and in a crouch, the S&W Shield .45 she’d been carrying in her handbag now in her hands as she covered the downed asshole. Asshole’s companion was booking it towards the entrance, clutching her coat to her chest like her life depended on it. The manager had hit the floor and pulled the waiter down with him. A few diners had likewise taken cover, others were still sitting in their chairs and staring, some in horror, others in confusion. There were no additional threats.

“Sonny!” Odette called, “You okay?”

“I’m good. Clear. You have your blowout kit?”

“Of course. You’re hit?!”

“I’m good. He’s not. Work on him.” I didn’t really give two shits about him, but deep down I really hadn’t wanted to kill him. Beat him to a bloody pulp, sure, maybe, but not kill him. Odette started fishing into her handbag for her trauma kit while I dropped the magazine from my pistol and placed it on the table, then racked the slide, caught the ejected round and placed it next to the magazine, then locked the slide open and placed it on the other side of the mag opposite the pistol. Then I pulled my phone out of my pocket, unlocked it, and dialed 911. The call connected on the sixth ring.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“My name is Michael Crocket, I’m at the _Moshulu_ restaurant on the waterfront, I don’t know the address. I have a License to Carry a Firearm, a man at the restaurant shot me, I defended myself. My assailant is wounded, he needs immediate medical attention. Send the police and paramedics.”

“Okay sir, I have you at 401 South Christopher Columbus Boulevard, a man pulled a gun and shot your and you defended yourself, he’s down and needs paramedics. Police cars and ambulance are on their way. Can you give him first-aid?”

“Yeah, I’m here with my girlfriend, she’s a certified EMT and had her kit on her, she’s working on him.”

“Okay, can you stay on the line until the police get there? Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah, sure, no...”

“Sonny!” I looked up. Odette was staring at me, her ice-blue eyes wide with horror.

“Hang on,” I moved the mic away from my mouth and asked, “What’s up?”

“You’re hit!”

I glanced down and looked myself over. Dark stains were slowly spreading across my pantlegs, and angry red blotches were spreading across the lower part of my white dress shirt. I suddenly felt lightheaded. I moved the phone back to my mouth.

“Ah, I’ve been hit. I’m gonna sit down...”

The operator kept talking, but before I could start back toward my chair, or any chair, really, Odette was next to me.

“Lie down, slowly.”

“I’m okay. He’s not.”

“He’s gone. You’re bleeding out on me. Now hold still. This is probably gonna hurt. Sorry.” She’d produced a pair of trauma shears from somewhere and set to work cutting my pants off.

“You’ll do anything to get me naked,” I quipped. Couldn’t help it.

“Sir?” the 911 operator asked.

“Huh? Oh, sorry, talking to my girlfriend. She’s working on me now. I think the other guy is dead.”

“Put me on speaker and put the phone down,” Odette ordered. I complied. “Operator, I’m Odette Morgan, US Navy, retired. The man who shot my boyfriend is dead.”

“Are you certain?”

“His brains are leaking all over the carpet, sir. My boyfriend, Michael, has multiple gunshot wounds to the legs and abdomen. His assailant was carrying a Taurus Judge, one of those shotgun revolvers, so I want to say that Micahel’s wounds were caused by buckshot.”

“Okay, ma’am. Paramedics are on their way. Can you stabilize him until they get there?”

“Working on it.”

“Here.” I unclipped my own micro blowout kit and tossed it to her.

“I’ve got plenty,” she said.

“One more thing. This _really_ wasn’t how I’d planned this weekend to go...”

“Yeah, no shit,” she snorted.

“And you’re doing a wonderful job like you always do, but just in case I don’t make it...” I reached into my jacket pocket and began to fish out the tiny leather box. “...I really don’t want a doctor or paramedic to give this to you instead, and the truth is, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time...”

Odette froze as everything clicked into place. Tears welled up in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her arm.

“Sonny,” she hiccuped, “I love you, but I swear to God, if you ask me to marry you while I’m trying to stop you from bleeding out, I will castrate you with these trauma shears!”

“Duly noted. Will save proposal until after I get out of surgery. But that said, you are the most beautiful, most incredible woman I’ve ever met, I love you more than anything on this Earth, you are the best thing that ever happened to me...”

“You’re damn right,” she snarked through her tears.”

“...and I want to spend however long I have left with you.”

“Not gonna be too long if you keep distracting me,” she sniffled, “now shut up. You’re making me cry, and I can’t see what I’m doing if I’m crying!”

Fortunately for both of us, the cops and paramedics arrived a few moments later. The EMTs took over from Odette, finished patching me up, then started an IV with fluids and I guess a really strong painkiller, because I don’t really remember much of anything after they loaded me onto a gurney and started wheeling me out of the restaurant.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the present. In which Sonny finds out just how nefarious Eddie's plans actually are.

Consciousness tricked back painfully slow. Operative word being “painfully”: as I became aware of myself, I realized that I felt like I’d been worked over by Mike Tyson. And as my recollection of the night... actually, I had no idea how long it had been, but regardless I think being worked over by the Heavyweight Champion of the World would’ve been less painful than getting the ever-loving shit beat out of me by a group of selkie. But nothing felt broken. So I had that going for me, at least.

I was sitting upright on a cold, hard surface, with my back against an equally cold, equally hard surface, and my arms suspended above my head and my legs stretched out in front of me. My wrists and ankles were clamped in metal cuffs, probably some sort of manacles. I’m not sure how long it took me to wrench my eyes open, or how long after that it took my eyes to adjust to the dim, flickering light, but when I was finally able to take in and process my surroundings, I rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache. Or made my already-existing headache worse. Whatever. Either way, I had a pounding headache and it sucked.

I was chained up in a dungeon. Like a medieval dungeon straight out of a Ye Olde Robin Hood movie or something. The walls and floor were both smooth stone, and my wrists and ankles were indeed chained to the wall and floor (respectively) with metal cuffs.

Eddie’s people had stripped me of my gun belt, shoulder holster, KA-BAR and its sheath, and the Emerson Commander I’d had in my pants pocket, no surprises there, but they hadn’t stripped me and/or put me in other clothes, which was a surprise. And if that one particular pain at the base of my spine was any indication, they hadn’t found the secret pocket on the inside my belt that held a steel handcuff key. Not that that would do me any good since I couldn’t reach it, and even if I could I doubted it would work on any lock in this building let alone my manacles.

Speaking of which, where the hell was I? My first thought that I was in Selkieland or whatever they called their fey realm (yes, I know the name. No, I can’t pronounce it. Can’t even come close to getting it right), but then again I could just as easily be on Earth. Fey still had allies here, and humans can be into – and get up to – really weird, hinky shit. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was some rich freak’s secret basement torture dungeon. Hell, there’d been that Condition-offshoot cult that had actually had a secret basement torture dungeon in the ringleader’s property. But that place had looked less like a set from a big-budget fantasy movie and more like something out an especially sick and twisted snuff film.

I shuddered, trying to banish the memories of that particular case. That had been a _really_ bad one. Earl had nearly fired me when he found out what I’d done to a few of the cultists... then he’d seen the videos said cultists had been making in the aforementioned torture dungeon. He’d decided instead to give Team Spooky a very large, very quiet under-the-table bonus and directed us to seek counselling with the Doctors Nelson down at Appleton. Most of the team had taken him up on it. The counselling, that is. Everyone had taken the bonus. I’d ignored the directive. Hadn’t thought I’d needed it. I’d found myself regretting that decision on more than one sleepless night.

I wasn’t sure how long they kept me chained up down there, alone with my ever-darkening thoughts. It felt like days. It was probably just a few hours at most. Eddie didn’t seem like the type who could go a whole day without gloating about how much smarter he was than the stupid, pathetic human he’d captured to said stupid, pathetic human’s face. Every so often, I could hear footsteps march past my cell’s door, probably a guard, and they seemed to pass at a regular interval, but again I had no way of accurately measuring how long that interval was.

Solitary confinement sucks. It sucks even more when you’re literally chained in place.

After an eternity, I heard footsteps – multiple sets of footsteps – stop outside my door. Then came the unmistakable sound of a key being inserted into a lock and the lock unlatching with a loud, echoing _CLACK!_

“About damn time, Eddie!” I snarled as the door swung outward. “The hell took you so long?” I would have continued with the taunting, but none of the three men who entered the cell were Eddie, so there was no point. The first two through the door were obviously guards: they were wearing fantastical-looking plate armor (like something out of a Tolkien adaptation) and matching helmets, and carried long and wicked-looking halberds. The third man was wearing official-looking robes of some sort (the colors were difficult to make out in the faint and flickering light) and had a small bag or pouch in his hand.

I was in Selkieland. Shit.

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked nobody in particular. The guards responded to my innocent question by shouting at me in their Gaelic-sounding language and levelling the tips of their halberds at my throat. Like I said, I don’t speak the language, but I got the gist: “Silence! I kill you!” Personally, I thought Achmed The Dead Terrorist said it better.

Then I noticed the bag in the third guy’s hand. Or more specifically, I noticed that it was moving.

“What... what the fuck is that?”

The guards shouted at me to shut up again, and one of them decided to emphasize the point by pressing the tip of his halberd against my throat. I could feel the blood start to well up around it. This was bad.

Then the guy in the robes opened up the little bag and pulled out the thing inside, and things got so, so much worse.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” I hissed and gurgled against the blade at my throat.

It was a fat, yellowish leech-like creature, maybe an inch long and very slimy looking. The guy in the robes held it out and began advancing towards me.

“Wait... what... what are you doing? What are you doing with that. No. No! Don’t touch me! Get your fucking hands off me!”

I was, of course, ignored. The guard withdrew his halberd just enough to let the guy in the robes wrench my head to the side and get my left ear pointed at the ceiling without slicing my throat open. Then he jammed the little leech into my ear.

I screamed. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was cold and slimy and I could _feel_ it crawling further and further into my ear canal and then _OHHOLYFUCKINGSHITBALLSGODHELPMEMAKEITSTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!_

The pain was indescribable. My skull felt like it was exploding. My vision actually whited out for several seconds, that’s how bad it was. Then the pain vanished as abruptly as it had begun. I could feel a faint pressure towards the base of my skull, but nothing at all in my ear.

“What the fuck was that thing?!” I snarled. “What the fuck did you just do to me?!”

“Silence!” the guard barked as she shoved the halberd back against my throat. I started to hiss a retort, but then whatever response I’d been formulating died on my tongue. He’d spoken perfect – though accented – English. Except, no he hadn’t. His mouth had moved like he was speaking in Selkie, but I’d heard perfect English.

“Wait, what?”

“I said be silent!” There it was again. I was hearing English, but his mouth was moving out of sync with the words. It was like watching a dubbed foreign film, but in real life.

“The fuck is going on?!”

“The creature that I have just placed in your ear is causing this effect,” the dude in the robes explained. Same thing: I understood him but his mouth was out of sync with his words. “It attaches to your brainstem and feeds on brain wave energy from those around you. A side effect of this symbiotic relationship is that you can understand, and be understood in, any spoken language.”

“No shit?”

“No, it will not defecate physical matter into your body.”

“That’s not... forget it. So why did you put it in me?”

“So that you may correctly understand the proceedings of your trial. A mere formality, though law demands it, as you will be certainly found guilty and executed for your crimes.”

“Great. No surprise there.”

“You seek death?”

“No, not really. I’m guessing either this thing doesn’t translate sarcasm, or else you people don’t understand the concept.”

“It does, and we do, though I fear Míogh is sadly immune to it,” an oh-so-unwelcomely familiar voice said. Eddie gave me an incredibly fake smile as he sauntered into the now rather cramped cell. “Surprised to see me, Ser Michael?” He sneered out the honorific like it was the punchline to a sarcastic joke.

“Surprised it took you this long to come down here and start gloating. Your kind always do.”

“Selkies are not given to such egotistical actions.”

“Maybe not, but megalomaniacal assholes on power trips are, no matter the species.” Eddie’s smile turned into a scowl and he lunged forward and backhanded me across the face. I swear I saw Tweety Bird flying in front of my eyes for a second.

“That the best you got?” I groaned after Tweety disappeared. I was still cognizant enough to realize I’d just gotten my bell rung, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. “Your half-sister could’ve hit me harder than that.”

He cocked his arm back, preparing to hit me again – and I could tell it would be _much_ harder this time – but stopped himself before he threw the punch. The fake smile returned to his face and he turned to the dude in the robes, AKA Míogh.

“Leave us.” Míogh visibly started at the order.

“My Lord?”

“You question my order, Míogh?”

“No, My Lord!”

“I thought not. Clear the cell.”

“Yes, My Lord! At once.” Míogh fled the cell as quickly as he could without being rude or breaking some protocol or another, or whatever. The two guards followed behind him. Last man out closed the door behind them, and somebody re-locked it.

“I don’t suppose it would do me much good to start blabbing about your nefarious scheme, would it?”

“Indeed it would not.” Eddie’s smile appeared genuine for a second. “Míogh is loyal only to me. As are my soldiers, naturally.”

“Naturally. Not that it would matter since nobody here would take the word of a filthy human of a Selkie, let alone a member of the Royal Family or whatever the right term is.”

“Of course not.”

“So Míogh mentioned that I’m gonna be tried and executed for kidnapping Rìchnea and corrupting her or defiling her or some bullshit.”

Eddie’s smile actually disappeared for a second. He frowned and cocked his head to the side. I snorterd: the gesture reminded me of my foster mother’s dumbass dog.

“He told you that?”

“Just that I’m gonna be tried and executed, and the trial is a ‘mere formality.’ I just guessed at whatever bullshit story you spun for the _Ceancinidh_ and the Clan Court or whatever it’s called.” That stupid smile spread back across his face. I really wished my hands were free, because I was overcome with a primal need to slap it off of him.

“Oh,” he chortled, “I am afraid that it is far, far worse than that, Ser Michael. You see, you and the Princess were captured smuggling cold iron weapons into the Realm, clearly in an attempt to assassinate the _Ceancinidh_ , and likely the rest of the Clan Elders as well, and install your accomplice, Princess Rìchnea, as a puppet ruler so that humans might take control of Clan Lordáigan. And...” his smile grew wider, “...not only did were you captured with cold iron weapons, you were captured carrying irrefutable written proof that those weapons were provided to you by your own Clan, despite their _claiming_ to have disowned and exiled you! Clearly an act of war by the humans against Clan Lordáigann and Selkie-kind in general!”

“Witten proof?! What written proof that’s bull...” My words died on my tongue as it hit me. Milo’s letter. I’d tossed it in the duffel with the guns. And if Eddie could convince the _Ceancinidh_ and Clan Elders that I was an assassin, then that letter would be all the proof they’d need to believe that my actions had been sanctioned by MHI. Fuck. Eddie had played me – played everyone – like the proverbial fiddle.

“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Provoke a war with the humans?” Eddie nodded, arrogant pride written all over every inch of his figure. “You knew MHI would give me those guns?”

“Oh no, I certainly could not have predicted the actions of your overly-sympathetic colleague. I had planned on needing at least one of your centuries to concoct the needed provocation. But I am nothing if not adaptable. Your actions – and Rìchnea willingly being in your company at the time the weapons were discovered – simply played into my hands, and I took full advantage of the situation.”

“Why? I mean, I get you wanting to be _Ceancinidh_. I’ve heard a hundred different versions of that old story at least thousand times over. Each. But why war with humans? What the hell do you hope to accomplish?”

“Reclaiming our rightful place in the universe!” His smile turned back into a sneer. “Retaking the world that we once ruled, that your pathetic kind threw us off of, and then smashing your pathetic race back into the dust where you belong! As we once ruled and you once served, so shall it be once more!”

I was too stunned to roll my eyes. I definitely hadn’t seen this coming. Forget attempted coup: Eddie was plotting the interdimensional equivalent of World War Three.

“With Clan Lordáigan at the top of the heap, and with you in charge of Clan Lordáigan.”

“But of course.”

“And the humans who dared cast off the rule of your people... what, millennia ago? Enslaved once again. Because fuck them and their uppity human ways.”

“Precisely!”

“And futile. You have to know you can’t win.”

“Oh spare me your human arrogance!”

“It’s not arrogance. It’s fact. You said your clan thinks that Rìchnea spent too much time amongst us humans? You should probably go up there and spend a few years among us and then come back and reevaluate our plot. Because we’ve advanced so much farther than you in the last however many thousands of years. We threw you off of us with, what? Stone age tech? Bronze age? Spears, swords, bows and arrows? Our weapons now are orders of magnitude deadlier now.”

“What, your pathetic firearms? Cannons? They fire lead and hot iron. Such materials have no effect on us.”

“Yeah, but I’ll bet nukes do.”

“Nukes?”

“Thermonuclear weapons. Like transporting part of the surface of the sun directly onto your doorstep. Reduces everything at ground zero to atoms, everything within the fireball gets vaporized. And that fireball can be hundreds, even thousands of yards across. Doesn’t matter how strong or powerful or seemingly invulnerable you are, the laws of physics do not lie, and they are an absolute bitch. And then there’s the radiation that’ll render hundreds of square miles an uninhabitable wasteland for centuries. And that’s just one bomb: humanity has tens of thousands of them. And we will use them against you. We’ve nuked other realms before. Ask the Old Ones next time you talk to them. So believe me when I say that there is no way that you can win. You’re outnumbered and you’re _seriously_ outgunned. And even if you do somehow managed to beat us, you’ll be left with not one, but two empty, radioactive, uninhabitable husks of worlds to rule over. So don’t bother even trying. It’s not worth it.”

Eddie, I gotta give him credit, at least seemed to consider my words for a few moments. Then the sneer returned.

“So you say. And even if you are correct, I take satisfaction in the knowledge that you shall not live to see it. Guards!”

The door swung open and Eddie exited the cell. The guard swung the door closed and locked it again, leaving me alone with my own thoughts for another who-knew-how-long until a quartet of guards finally arrived to escort me from the cell to wherever the hell they were holding my kangaroo court of a show trial.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trial begins... and ends with a bang!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long chapter. I couldn't find a good spot to break it into two parts.

Our trial, as it turned out, was held in the palace’s throne room, or whatever the Selkie called it. The Palace’s aesthetic was... odd. A weird hybrid of medieval, renaissance, and... the palace from Kenneth Branagh’s _Hamlet_. Baroque? Rococo? I don’t know: I mostly zoned out during my grade-school art classes. And with some aquatic-ness mixed in to the whole bizarre combination too. Sort-of-kind-of like in _The Little Mermaid_ , only without the blatant phallic symbols. I wish I could describe it better, but like I said, architecture isn’t my forte.

Rìchnea joined me on my journey to the throne room, herself escorted by a quartet of guards. She’d shed her human clothes and was clad in a simple gray gown. She seemed remarkably upbeat for someone who was about to receive a death sentence. Once that I was certain would be carried out immediately after being handed down, no less.

“Why so glum, Ser Michael?” she asked. The bimbo was even smiling.

“Why so upbeat, Princess?” I fired back, making sure to lay the sarcasm on extra thick.

“Our trial approaches.”

“Yeah, and that’s a good thing why?”

“You do not plan to prove your own innocence and reveal the true mastermind behind this plot?”

“Yeah, if I could, but I can’t.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because Eddie’s got the fix in on us.”

“He has got the fix in on us? I do not understand.”

“It means he’s rigged the whole thing. Fabricated evidence against us and twisted the evidence that would help us to make us look even guiltier instead. We’re screwed. It’s over. We’re dead.” I didn’t mention that he was going to use our supposed guilt to lead her people into a war that they had no hope of winning, that would only result in their destruction. She didn’t need that on her conscience when she died.

But to my utter disbelief, she actually giggled.

“Oh Ser Michael. Have faith.”

“You sound like my foster father,” I growled.

“He must have been a man of great wisdom.”

He was a self-righteous holier-than-thou do-gooder asshole. But I kept my mouth shut. My family was the _last_ thing I wanted to think about, let alone talk about, right then.

After several more long, boring minutes, we were escorted (well, Rìchnea was escorted, I was more-or-less dragged) into the throne room. It was a massive chamber. Elegant, ornate tapestries hung from the walls and adorned practically every surface. The assembled members of court, their aides and courtesans, and the various hangers-on and spectators – and there were hundreds of them – were all clad in bright, striking silks. It was the kind of scene that would have made the old-school Disney animators drool... and then have a collective nervous breakdown when ol’ Walt told them to recreate it in his next film.

The crowd parted as we entered, revealing a thick carpet, green instead of the expected red, that stretched across the floor from the wide entrance doors all the way to the raised dais at the far end of the chamber. A single throne, carved out of what looked like ivory or bone or something similar, stood in the center of the dias, and on the throne sat who could only be the _Ceancinidh_ of Clan Lordáigan.

She appeared to be in her late 40s or early 50s, though I knew she had to be several centuries old. I could definitely see the family resemblance between her, Rìchnea, and Eddie, though Rìchnea had definitely inherited her mothers looks far more than Eddie had. But while _Ceancinidh_ was the definition of youthful beauty and, dare I say it, raw sexuality, the _Ceancinidh_ was a picture of refined grace, elegance, poise, and maturity. And, if the hard and steely look in her eyes was anything to go by, intelligence, cunning, and duplicity as well. No surprise there: one didn’t get to be – and remain – the head of a clan of Fey, even as mellow (relatively-speaking) type of Fey as Selkie were, without possessing a quick, sharp, and dangerous mind. She was clad in an ornate gown of deep green silks (or at least, I assumed it to be silk) and a surprisingly simple tiara adorned her head.

Eddie was standing at the corner of the dais. Maybe I was imagining it, but I swore he shot me a triumphant, mocking sneer as we approached.

The guards brought us down the carpet, stopped us at the base of the dais, and then forced us to our knees. Okay, they just forced me to my knees. Rìchnea dipped into a deep curtsey before the _Ceancinidh_ , then willingly knelt next to me. The _Ceancinidh_ raised her right hand, heralds sounded their trumpets at the cue, and the assembly fell silent. Older-looking Selkie who I assumed had to be the Clan Elders took to the chairs alongside the dais that I hadn’t noticed before. They’d been obscured by the guards and the crowd, and to be honest I’d had my attention fixed primarily on Eddie. Smug bastard. He was enjoying this _way_ more than he had any right to.

And with that, the Court of Clan Lordáigan was called into session.

“Who dares,” the _Ceancinidh_ demanded with an air of overwhelming formality, “lay charge against our beloved daughter and heir-presumptive, Rìchnea of Lordáigan, and the human Ser Michael Crockett of Monster Hunter International?”

“I dare lay charge against them, oh _Ceancinidh_!” Eddie answered the challenge. I had to give him props, the grave and somber air he was putting on would probably have convinced me he was being genuine if he hadn’t been taking such gleeful joy in gloating to my face mere hours before.

“Edhémhnart, our son, lays the charge. Approach us, and tell us of the nature of the charge.”

Eddie alighted onto the dais, not quite able to keep the spring out of his step, and gestured off to the side. Two male Selkie – I pegged them as his retainers since they were wearing far less ornate versions of the blood red getup Eddie was wearing – carried a table with my guns and machete on it before the throne, placing it off to mine and Rìchnea’s right.

“The charges, and there are many, _Ceancinidh_ , Mother, are most grave indeed. Your beloved daughter, my beloved half-sister, has fallen in league with this human and his clan of honorless mercenaries, and in gratitude for being granted her freedom from the foul human Martin Godwin, agreed to assist Michael Crockett in the smuggling of the human weapons you see before you, loaded and capable of firing the deadly cold iron, into our realm, which they would use to assassinate you, oh _Ceancinidh_ , and the entire Council of Elders!”

Horrified gasps arose from the crowd. I heard a loud _thump_ that sounded like somebody fainting, but when I started to turn my head to look towards the sound, one of the guards thumped me in the kidney with the butt of his halberd . So I kept my eyes front.

“These are grave charges indeed,” the _Ceancinidh_ intoned. “I trust you have adequate evidence to prove them true.”

“Mother, I fear the evidence is far more than adequate. They were captured by my men attempting to enter the realm, but not before they murdered my beloved friend Póghéibho in their attempt to escape!”

“Bullshit!” I snarled, “That’s not –” A sharp blow to the side of my head interrupted me.

“Be silent, human!” the _Ceancinidh_ commanded. “You shall have your chance to present your defense against these charges in due time, but until you are called to do so you shall remain silent. Continue, Edhémhnart.”

“Thank you, oh _Ceancinidh_. The survivors of the aforementioned incident shall testify as to the events leading to the murder of poor Póghéibho and the capture of this murderous human and our traitorous sister. Though I believe that such testimony shall prove unnecessary, as my men also recovered a letter with these weapons, a letter containing instructions for Ser Michael to carry out his foul mission!” He marched over to the table, plucked a folded piece of paper from between the rifle and the shotgun, opened it, and proceeded to read.

“‘Crocket, the weapons are leftovers from a little project that Harbinger had me put together in the late 80’s or early 90’s. A Hunter on the Seattle team got himself in trouble with some Fey, so Earl had me whip these babies up to help him. Chad was able to get everything worked out with the elves, so we never ended up using them, but I decided to keep them just in case. Lucky us, huh? Harbinger says that the bounty on the _Ceancinidh_ alone should fund the company’s operations for at least a year...”

“YOU LYING _BASTARD_!” I was so pissed that I forgot that my hands were shackled behind me as I lunged to my feet, intent on chocking the life out of him. I didn’t even make it a single step before the guards clubbed me flat back onto the floor with the butts of their halberds.

“Another such interruption and I shall have you removed from our presence and your chance at defense shall be forfeited, human!” the _Ceancinidh_ proclaimed, unable to keep her anger and frustration from leaking into her otherwise refined and regal tone. “We ask you continue, Edhémhnart.”

“Thank you, oh _Ceancinidh_ , but I feel there is no need. The evidence that I have so far presented, combined with the human’s attempt to physically attack me, should be more than sufficient. I will, of course, submit this letter to the _Ceancinidh_ and her Council of Elders for review. In it you shall find proof of Rìchnea’s collaboration with the humans in their attempt to assassinate you all.”

“Very good. You then choose to rest your case against Ser Michael Crockett of Monster Hunter International and Rìchnea of Lordáigan?”

“I do so rest my case against them, oh _Ceancinidh_.”

“Very well. Step down, Sir, and surrender the letter in your possession to the Council.”

“By your command, oh _Ceancinidh_.”

Eddie left the dais and made his way over to the row of seated Council-Selkie, not even bothering to hide his smug, victorious attitude as he handed over the forged letter.

“Ser Michael Crockett of Monster Hunter International,” the _Ceancinidh_ addressed me, “You have heard the charges laid against you. Have you testimony and evidence to present in your defense?”

“I have testimony, ma’am,” My reply earned me another poke in the spine from a halberd butt. “Ow! What was that for?”

“You shall address the _Ceancinidh_ with the proper titles, respect, and courtesy due her station!” the guard barked.

“‘Honorable _Ceancinidh_ ,’” Rìchnea whispered just loudly enough for me to hear.

“Forgive me, honorable _Ceancinidh_. I have testimony to offer, however any evidence that might have proven my innocence has been stolen, destroyed, or corrupted and twisted against me.”

“I see,” the _Ceancinidh_ scowled at me like a disapproving schoolmarm. “That is most unfortunate.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Well then, speak and be heard, human!”

The guards grabbed me under my armpits, hauled me none-to-gently to my feet, and shoved me towards the dais. I didn’t quite catch the step up and almost fell flat on my face, but thankfully I caught myself and didn’t go sprawling in a heap at the _Ceancinidh_ ’s feet. That, I suspected, wouldn’t have helped my case any. I turned and gave the guards a nasty look before composing myself.

“Honorable _Ceancinidh_ , honorable Elders of the Great Clan Lordáigan, as I said, the evidence that could have proven my innocence has been destroyed or twisted against me, so all I can do is speak the truth to you. And the truth is that I am not an assassin.”

“Lies!” a Clan Elder snarled, “Your clan hunts our people for fun and profit!”

“Monster Hunter International is not my clan. They are not my family. They _were_ my employer, and I say ‘were’ because they terminated my employment after elements of Clan Lordáigan made it known that they meant to kill me, either for my accidentally and unwillingly betrothing myself to the heir-presumptive Rìchnea or because I made my refusal to wed her known, and that they also meant to hold MHI responsible for my actions. And even if I still worked for them, MHI has a policy: any race or clan that leaves humans alone, MHI leaves alone. Clan Lordáigan does not prey on humankind, nor do any other Selkie clans to the best of my knowledge. MHI has no quarrel with Clan Lordáigan, nor do they seek to assassinate you, Honorable _Ceancinidh_ , nor any member of your people.”

“You think us fools?!” another Elder bellowed. “You think us mealy-minded?! You believe that we would fall prey to such blatant falsehoods when the weapons provided by your clan to do the deed lay before us?!”

“Those weapons...” I found myself drowned out by the outranged, angry shouting that spread across the Clan of Elders and rapidly swept across the entire Throne Room. Within seconds, it was loud enough that I could barely hear myself think, let alone make myself heard over it.

“ORDER!”

But it was nothing compared to the _Ceancinidh_ ’s order that echoed off the walls like a peal of thunder. The assembly fell silent within a second.

“We shall have order in our Court! By the Ancients, are we pixies?! Nay, we are Selkie, and we should be ashamed to act as anything but!” I could feel the shame and embarrassment permeate through the chamber. “Now then, if we are quite finished embarrassing ourselves and our Clan... pray continue, Ser Michael.”

“Thank you, Honorable _Ceancinidh_. As I was saying, the weapons you see before you were given to me by a now-former coworker of mine, without the knowledge or permission of Earl Harbinger, Julie Shackleford-Pitt, or any other member of MHI’s leadership. He gave them to me with the express understanding that I would use them to defend myself from any members of Clan Lordáigan, or your Fey allies, who might try to kill me. _Not_ to assassinate anyone. The letter that was just read to you is a forgery.”

“You claim that you intended only to defend yourself,” the _Ceancinidh_ intoned, “Yet Póghéibho was slain by one of these weapons. You deny killing him.”

“I deny murdering him. When I shot him, he was armed and was actively stalking Rìchnea and myself. He clearly intended to murder me, and almost certainly Rìchnea as well. And if I remember my lessons on Selkie culture correctly, that counts as self-defense.”

“So you say,” the _Ceancinidh_ remarked, “And yet you claim that you can offer no evidence to support your testimony.”

“As I said, it has been destroyed or twisted against me. So no, I cannot.”

“And therefore we must take you solely at your word.” She didn’t add that the word of a human was worth considerably less to this Court than the word of a Selkie. She didn’t have to. I knew it, and so did every one else in the Throne Room.

“That about sums it up.”

“Quite convenient, would you not say?”

“With all due respect, honorable _Ceancinidh_ , from where I’m standing, it’s quite _in_ convenient.”

“Then you have nothing left to add to your case?”

“Just one last thing, while we’re on the subject of convenience. Namely how convenient it is that all of the evidence that would have helped prove my testimony was collected and ‘maintained’ by the same individual who is levying these charges against us, and who also, I might add, stands the most to gain if Rìchnea were to be removed from the line of succession.”

The _Ceancinidh_ ’s scowl deepened.

“Supposition, conjecture, and implication may be considered valid forms of evidence in a human court, but they have no place in ours. Now if you have nothing meaningful nor acceptable to add to your defense, then you _will_ step down and rest your case.”

“No, that’s it, I have nothing else.”

The _Ceancinidh_ gave a slight gesture, and the guards seized me, dragged me off the dias, and forced me back onto my knees next to Rìchnea. Well, that was it. I’d given it the only shot I’d had and it had turned out to be futile. Just like I’d known it would be.

“Honorable _Ceancinidh_ ,” Rìchnea spoke, her voice suddenly full of a serious formality that I hadn’t even imagined she’d possessed. “I would present testimony and evidence in defense of both myself and Ser Michael Crockett.”

A quiet rumble spread through the crowd.

“This is... unusual,” the _Ceancinidh_ remarked, “but neither unheard of nor forbidden. Stand and be heard, daughter of ours.”

“Thank you, honorable _Ceancinidh_.” Rìchnea rose to her feet and moved confidently onto the dais. I blinked and would have rubbed my eyes if my arms hadn’t still been shackled behind me, because the frightened, clueless bimbo airhead had somehow transformed into a fearless, confident, intelligent young (well, young for a Selkie) woman.

“Honorable _Ceancinidh_ , honorable Elders of Clan Lordáigan, I stand before you this day to proclaim the truth. Know ye, that every word spoken by Ser Michael Crockett was true. He is no assassin, but yet another victim in the plot that saw me enslaved, assaulted, degraded, and violated by the repulsive human, Martin Godwin, and would lead this great and ancient Clan to ruin! Know ye, that I am Ser Michael’s accomplice only in our mutual desire to see true justice for him, for myself, and for my Clan.

“Let it be known that Ser Michael, for reasons unknown to me, neglected to speak of a key fact in our defense: that we were not captured at the borders of our great realm, but rather far inland, many hundreds of leagues from the shores of the great sea that marks the boundary between our worlds. And let it be known further that Póghéibho was indeed slain whilst meaning to murder both myself and Ser Michael, and that he had was undertaking such foul deeds on the order of his lord and master! And I further testify that Póghéibho is the self-same individual behind my abduction!”

 _That_ got the crowd a-murmuring and a-whispering even harder. Because everyone present knew _exactly_ who Póghéibho’s lord and master had been: Eddie.

“These are most serious accusations, my child,” the _Ceancinidh_ said solemnly. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw chinks in her aloof, detached air. She had no reason to take the word of a human, but she couldn’t dismiss the word of a fellow Selkie. Especially not her own daughter. “I trust you have evidence to support them?”

“I do indeed, honorable _Ceancinidh_.” She reached into the folds of her gown and withdrew a small object. I couldn’t stop my jaw from hitting the floor.

What the hell was she doing?! Was she _trying_ to get us killed?!

“Ser Michael,” she asked, “would you kindly inform the honorable _Ceancinidh_ and the Council Members as to the nature of the object which I hold in my possession?”

“Yeah... uh, yes. Us humans call that device a smartphone.”

“And would you please describe its uses?”

“Uh, well, it can have a lot of uses, but, uh, the three main ones would be for communication, information retrieval, and, uh, information storage.”

“Honorable _Ceancinidh_! Mother!” Eddie scoffed, “This farce obviously has nothing to do with the matter at hand!”

“Forgive me, honorable _Ceancinidh_. I beg your indulgence for only a few moments more. I must inform the Council and yourself as to the nature and capabilities of this human device that I would give credence to the evidence which I am about to present.”

“We shall allow it,” the _Ceancinidh_ decreed. “Continue, daughter.”

“Thank you, honorable _Ceancinidh_. Tell us, Ser Michael, what sorts of information can be stored on this device?”

“Um... video – that is, moving pictures with sound – and still images. Documents, or at least images of documents. Music. Sound... games too, I guess.”

“The sounds. They would include spoken words?”

“Yes.”

“And this device is capable if recording those words?”

“It should be. I mean, if it’s working properly.”

“And it can replay them?”

“Yes, it can.”

“Unaltered?”

“Yes...” Where was she going with this?

“Can it record and replay a conversation between multiple parties in the same room?”

“If they’re close enough to the phone and the microphone is good enough, it can.” Where was she... no. No. She couldn’t be that good. I couldn’t be so fortunate. I glanced over at Eddie. A hint of color had faded from his cheeks.

“Thank you, Ser Michael.” A triumphant grin split Rìchnea’s cheeks as she held the phone aloft. “Listen, oh Clan Lordáigan, and listen well! For I present unto you the confession of the true mastermind of the plot against me and our beloved clan!”

Eddie opened his mouth to protest. Too late. Rìchnea tapped a button on the phone’s screen.

 _“How?! How did you discover me?”_ I don’t know what kind of Fey magic she’d worked on the phone and its speakers, but Eddie’s furious voice echoed through the throne room. A collective gasp echoed through the chamber.

 _“You... call... called me... Michael.”_ I grimaced. My voice always sounds funny on the phone even without having a Fey trying to choke the life out of me. Now the crowd had fallen deadly silent as they listened with rapt attention. Eddie was rooted to the floor, his face rapidly turning the same color as ashes.

_“That is your name!”_

_“Yeah. Yeah, but... that’s_ _not... what I... call... myself. Now... what... what the... fuck... did... you...”_

_“Do? I ‘did’ nothing. Only attempted to give your thoughts a gentile push in the direction I required they take.”_

_“You... you... man... manip... you fucked... with my team’s... heads. With Odette’s... head._

_“Of course. You humans and your pathetic fears and insecurities make it so easy. Even the one you call Harbinger was pathetically simple to manipulate. I feared he would be immune from my persuasions, but I was quite mistaken. He was nearly as easy to influence as the pathetic mewling quim you thought capable of loving you!”_

_“BASTARD!_ ” Then came the sounds of me punching him and him slamming me into the wall. I winced again. _“So... you fucked... your... Elders’... heads... too. Right?”_

_“Godwin... then.”_

_“Indeed. Though I must confess he took rather little convincing. Disgusting, really.”_

_“And... you set... her... up... to get... snatched...”_

_“But of course.”_

Rìchnea glared at her half-brother as she began tapping another button on the screen, replaying the last two lines of the recording over and over and over.

_“And... you set... her... up... to get... snatched...”_

_“But of course._

_“And... you set... her... up... to get... snatched...”_

_“But of course._

_“And... you set... her... up... to get... snatched...”_

_“But of course.”_

“That is quite enough!” the _Ceancinidh_ barked. “Guards, take Edhémhnart into custody! And remand Rìchnea and Ser Michael to their quarters until such time that we might acertain the validity of this record.”

The guards moved in on Eddie, but he wasn’t about to go quietly. I should have seen it coming. He lunged across the chamber to the table with the guns. I realized what he was about to do and leapt to my feet as he snatched up the derringer and aimed it at Rìchnea.

“GET DOWN!” I started screaming. “GET DOWN GET DOWN GET DOOOWWWWWWN!!!!!”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, apologies for the delay. My goal is to get this wrapped up ASAP, so look for more chapters in the near future.

My immediate instinct was to try to tackle Rìchnea and the _Ceancinidh_ to the ground and use myself as a meat shield until the guards could subdue Eddie. But they were too far away, and I’d need my arms free to grab them. So I did what was honestly the smarter move and body-slammed Eddie instead. My shoulder collided with hip a fraction of a second before the shot broke. I wasn’t able to knock him down like I’d planned (I _really_ wanted to kick the ever-loving shit out of him) but I did knock him off balance for a split second, causing his aim to waver and the deadly cold-iron dart to go wide. Screams erupted from the assembled female Selkie as the males all began to draw steel.

A full-on melee, like from the end of an old-timey swashbuckler movie, was in the process of erupting. But I had more important things to worry about. Namely the fact that while my attempted tackle hadn’t knocked Eddie down, I hadn’t been able to regain my footing after the hit and had ended up sprawled out on my belly directly in front of him. And he still had at least two shots in the derringer. He shot me a look of pure, unadulterated hatred as he leveled the big handgun at my face.

“At least I shall have the pleasure of ending your miserable existence!” he sneered. Time seemed to dilate as I watched him pull... the... derringer’s... long... double... action... trigger... or maybe he was being his over-dramatic self and really was pulling it that slowly. Either way, a primal shriek shattered the illusion as a red-and-gray blur – _Rìchnea_?! – flew over the table and slammed square into Eddie just as he _finally_ cranked off his shot and sent both of them disappearing into the brawl that was rapidly consuming the throne room. I felt something tug at my thigh. Right about where Godwin had shot me back when this all started. _Goddamn it, not again!_ I twisted around and looked down at my legs. Sure enough, a red patch was starting to spread across the outside of my thigh. Shit. At least he’d missed my ass...

A guard suddenly loomed over me. I twisted onto my back, ignoring the fire that blossomed up and down my leg, and made to kick him in the balls with my good leg. The flat of a long, thin, elegant-looking – yet obviously deadly-sharp – rapier appeared out of nowhere and touched my knee, stopping my blow. I looked over at the wielder. It was the _Ceancinidh_.

“Stay thy hand, Ser Michael,” she ordered. “We see now that you are not the villain.” The guard rolled me back over onto my belly so fast that I didn’t have time to even think about resisting. Someone or something pulled at the shackles on my wrists, then over the melee I made out the metallic _clicks_ of a key entering a keyway and a lock coming undone, and then my arms were free.

“You have our most humble and sincere apologies,” the _Ceancinidh_ continued, “for all that you have suffered at our hand and by our actions.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” I said as I got to my feet, “save it until this is over. Assuming we live through it.”

“Fair point,” she replied with a smile that almost looked sheepish.

I tested my injured leg. It hurt, but I’d been hurt worse, and it would bear weight. Blood was just oozing out of the wound, not spurting, so I wasn’t in imminent danger of bleeding out. Good. I was still in the fight. And it was fuckin’ payback time.

The machete was at the far end of the table, still in its sheath, with the shotgun laying next to it. I grabbed my blade and, since the mass of combatants seemed to be ignoring me for the time being, took a few precious seconds to undo my belt, thread it through the sheath’s loops, and then re-fasten it before snatching up the shotgun. The bandolier full of ammo was nowhere to be found, but there were still six shells in the side saddle. I flipped it over and pushed the lifter out of the way to check the tube, but a warning from the _Ceancinidh_ made me look up just in time to see a pair of Selkie in the blood-red uniforms that marked them as Eddie’s people lunge at me with their weapons. The one closest to me had the point of his longsword leveled dead at my heart, while the one two steps behind him was winding up with a battleaxe. I couldn’t tell if he was going for my neck or shoulder. Not that it’d matter much since I’d be dead either way in a few seconds.

But like I said, I intended to go down fighting.

I flipped the Remington back over, hitting the shell release with my trigger finger as I worked the pump. I _thought_ I’d seen a shell in the mag tube in the fraction of a second I had to look before these assholes had jumped me, but I wasn’t sure. And again, academic, since I didn’t have time to get both of them.

Then the _Ceancinidh_ deftly batted the longswordsman’s blade aside with her own and slid her blade neatly between his ribs, through one lung, the heart, and into the second lung. So I swung towards his partner – no time to actually shoulder the gun, let alone aim – and fired from the hip. The shotgun’s roar was deafening in the enclosed space, and actually brought the melee to a screeching halt for a split second. By some miracle, I didn’t miss: the cold-iron sabot slug connected with the axeman’s elbow, damn near tearing the limbo off and sending the weapon spinning past me back into the crowd, where it buried itself in the back of an unsuspecting selkie – thankfully one of Eddie’s people. His dying moan restarted the general fight.

“Thanks,” I nodded to the _Ceancinidh_ as I pumped a fresh slug into the chamber.

“A most impressive shot,” she remarked.

“Not really. I was aiming for his head.”

I turned my attention to the throne room. The fight was on in spades now. Blades flashed. Metal crashed. Blood sprayed. Selkie died. I’d probably call it a horrific sight if I hadn’t been desensitized to such things a long, long time ago. And either way, I had more important things to worry about. I scanned the crowd, searching for...

“Rìchnea!”

I heard the _Ceancinidh_ ’s quiet gasp an instant before I spotted Rìchnea and Eddie. They were in a small void in the melee near the far end of the throne room, a void maintained by the quartet of Eddie’s men who were using their halberds to keep the rest of the fighters at bay. Rìchnea may have caught Eddie off-guard, but he’d obviously overpowered her in short order because he was holding her against him, her back to his chest, and had a dagger pressed against her throat. I raised the Remington, lining the sights up...

“What are you waiting for?!” the _Ceancinidh_ demanded at my hesitation, “Fire! Slay Edhémhnart!”

“Can’t,” I groaned, lowering the shotgun from my shoulder, “Don’t have a clear shot.”

“What?!” _Coward_ went unsaid but seemed to be pretty heavily implied.

“I don’t...” I snapped the shotgun up and put a shell into the chest of each of the three selkie in blood-red uniforms that tried charging the dais. “They’re too far away and moving around too much! I might hit Rìchnea! Or maybe another friendly!”

The _Ceancinidh_ said something that my little parasitic translator interpreted just fine but I won’t bother repeating here. Suffice to say that her language would’ve made sailors blush.

“Very well,” she sighed. “Follow me, then.” She spun on her heels and took off in a sprint, racing behind the throne, throwing one of the hanging tapestries out of the way, and disappearing behind it. I stared after her dumbly for a second before following. It was an awkward retreat, me backing up while keeping the Remington shouldered and aimed at the melee with my strong hand and plucking shells from the side saddle and thumbing them into the magazine tube with my support hand. I imagine that if Owen Pitt had been there, he’d have given me shit for doing it one shell at a time instead of using one of his fancy-pants whiz-bang three-gunner dual- or quad-load techniques. But I’m a pistolero first and a rifleman second. Shotguns have always been a very distant third. I don’t much care for them, and only use them when I have to. Like right then.

I pulled aside the heavy tapestry that the _Ceancinidh_ had disappeared behind and revealed a very impatient-looking Selkie chieftain standing next to a narrow portal in the wall.

“Secret passage,” I remarked.

“Your powers of observation astonish me,” the _Ceancinidh_ remarked, “As does your sense of urgency.” Eddie had actually told me the truth for once: Selkie have a very firm grasp of sarcasm. “Come. Stay close. And close the door behind you. Quickly.”

The _Ceancinidh_ took off down the dark and narrow tunnel. I paused just long to push the door closed before following. She hadn’t been kidding, or questioning my competence (probably), when she’d told me to stay close: the tunnel led into a maze of tiny passages lit only by flickering torches. If the _Ceancinidh_ hadn’t been guiding me, I would have gotten lost in a heartbeat and probably would have stayed lost for the rest of my (abruptly shortened) life.

After only a few minutes, the _Ceancinidh_ led me down what appeared to be a dead-end tunnel. She fumbled for something on the far wall for a few seconds until she found the latch, then began to ease the concealed door open. She glanced out, then quickly closed it.

“They are coming,” she hissed.

“‘They,’ being Edhémhnart, Rìchnea, and Eddie’s four mooks,” I surmised.

“No, Earl Harbinger and Franks. Of course it is Edhémhnart, Rìchnea, and Edhémhnart’s escort!”

“He’s still holding her hostage?”

“He is.”

I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a plan.

“I don’t suppose there’s a way to see out of here without opening the door? Make sure the coast is clear before you exit?”

“There is,” the _Ceancinidh_ nodded. She found another lever on the door and pulled it, opening a tiny pair of eye-holes.

“Nice.” I pressed the Remington’s receiver against my chest, pointing the muzzle between my feet as I looked through the eye-holes. The secret door opened into an ornate hallway wide enough for several people to stand abreast of each other with room to spare. Perfect.

“Okay, when I give the signal, you open the door and I’ll charge out shooting, take down Eddie’s escort and then whack him.”

“Striking from ambush is not the Selkie way,” the _Ceancinidh_ hissed.

“But it is my way. And we both know Eddie and his pals won’t see it coming. Which is why you went marching on out of here to confront them directly rather than sneak back in here with me.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the _Ceancinidh_ smile. Her grin had a somewhat disturbing predatory quality about it.

“You are fare more astute than I first to your for, Ser Michael.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Your Hon-” My comment died mid-word as the first pair of escorts came into view. I lunged an oversized pace backwards and raised the shotgun to low-ready. “Now!”

The _Ceancinidh_ didn’t hesitate, wrenching the door open. The two lead escorts were dead even with the door. The nearest Selkie had just started to look towards the hole that had suddenly appeared in the wall next to him when I put the sights on his head and fired. His skull erupted in a fountain of gore. I was already moving forward as I rode the recoil and worked the pump. The second escort was staggering away from me, bleeding from what I guessed were cold-iron fragments that had over-penetrated his comrade’s head. I put a slug through his chest, dropping him like the proverbial sack of potatoes, then sidestepped to my left to engage the trailing escorts. The far escort reacted a hair quicker, lowering his halberd to charge me and run me through. But he was too far away and I already had a fresh shell in the chamber. My slug plowed through his sternum and blew his spine out his back. The last escort began to turn, maybe to run, maybe to wind up for a swing, but I didn’t care and it didn’t matter. My fourth shot caught him in the neck and damn near separated his head from his torso.

It was all over in maybe three seconds. Four, tops. The tapestries lining the walls were covered in gore. The air stank of blood and brains and burned powder. Owen would’ve been impressed.

I swung the shotgun around to cover Eddie. He’d grabbed Rìchnea by her hair and wrenched her head back, giving the wicked-looking blade in his hand maximum access to her delicate neck.

“Hold it!” I bellowed, more so that I could hear myself over the ringing in my ears than an attempt to sound intimidating.

“Release her, Edhémhnart!” the _Ceancinidh_ commanded as she emerged from the secret passage. That translator leech thing let me hear her just fine despite the hammering my eardrums had just taken from the quartet of shotgun blasts.

“I think not!” Eddie snarled. Rìchnea gasped as he pressed the blade harder against her throat.

“Cover six, Your Honor.”

“I beg your pardon?” the _Ceancinidh_ asked.

“Watch behind me and make sure none of this asshole’s buddies come up and stab me in the back.”

The _Ceancinidh_ nodded and took up a position behind me.

“It’s over, Eddie,” I said, “You lose.”

“Oh no,” he shook his head, “You cannot kill me.”

“Sure I can.” I lined the sights up on his forehead just above the bridge of his nose. “Easy-peasy-trigger-squeezy.”

“Perhaps, except if you shoot me, then my hand shall twitch, my blade shall open her throat, and she shall die.”

“So?”

“What?!” the three Selkie gasped at the same time.

“So how is that a threat?”

“Ser Michael...” the _Ceancinidh_ growled, and I found myself imagining her leveling the tip of her rapier at my heart.

“Come on, humans been making contingency plans for the death of an heir for centuries. And Seklie are _way_ cleverer than us stupid, primitive humans. You seriously expect me to believe that Clan Lordáigan doesn’t have contingency plans up the wazoo and the whole line of succession planned out in case something happens to the _Ceancinidh_ or the Heir Presumptive? You’re the long-term strategist, Eddie. You tell me I’m wrong.”

“Then if her death would be so meaningless to you and the Clan, perhaps I should open her throat regardless!”

“Okay, and then what?”

“Then you kill me, of course, and I die triumphant!”

“Nope.”

“What? You expect me to believe that you will not kill me before her corpse hits the floor?”

“Oh I’ll shoot you, but you won’t die. Not quickly, anyways. I’ll gut-shoot you. Blow your intestines out, maybe take out your spine and paralyze you too. Your physicians will save your life and you’ll live out the rest of your pathetic existence – might be a week, might be another few centuries – in miserable agony. Only way that doesn’t happen is if you drop the dagger, let Rìchnea go, and surrender.”

“So that I might be put to the torture and die in an even slower agony than you have threatened?” I think not. Though I am certain, Ser Michael, that we can come to a mutually-beneficial agreement.”

“Yeah, sure. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.”

“That is a most annoying idiom. But think, Ser Michael, of how many of your problems that the deaths of the _Ceancinidh_ and this little whore would solve. Your betrothal would, of course, be undone, and you would not be expected to wed whomever the new Heir Presumptive might be. You would be relieved of your oaths and obligations. You would be free to return to your life and your world, where you would remain unmolested and undisturbed by Clan Lordáigan.”

“Is that so?”

“It is indeed.”

“Is that so, Your Honor?”

“What? Ser Michael, you cannot-”

“Is it true, Your Honor?”

The tip of the _Ceancinidh_ ’s blade began to press against my back.

“Ser Michael,” she growled, “I warn you-”

“Lady, answer the fucking question.”

“It is,” she ground the words out through what were probably tightly-clenched teeth.

“Then that is an extremely tempting offer.” The _Ceancinidh_ pressed the rapier even harder against me. It wouldn’t take much effort to cause the tip to piece flesh and plunge through my heart. “It would solve pretty much all of my problems. There’s just... one little thing.”

“And what ‘thing’ is that?” Eddie asked.

“Thing is... maybe... you won’t even... twitch.”

The _Ceancinidh_ somehow knew what was about to happen because she lowered her blade a heartbeat before I pulled the trigger. Eddie’s head came apart like a ripe watermelon.

He didn’t twitch.

Rìchnea flew past me and into her mother’s arms and buried her head against the _Ceancinidh_ ’s chest. Her shoulders began to shake violently as she wept. The adrenaline – or whatever the Selkie equivalent was – was wearing off and the emotional toll of the last few minutes was slamming into her full force. I took the opportunity to load the last of the shells from the Remington’s side-saddle into the magazine tube. I wasn’t sure how many shots I had left, but it’d have to be enough.

Of course, no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than a mass of armed Selke poured into the hallway and began advancing on us. I snapped the Remington up and leveled it at the crowd.

“WHO WANTS SOME!?” I roared. “COME ON, I GOT PLENTY OF COLD IRON FOR ALL YOU BASTARDS! COME GET SOME!”

“STAY THY HANDS!” The _Ceancinidh_ ’s command made the walls literally shake. “All of you, stay thy hands and lower thy weapons! ‘Tis over! Lord Edhémhnart has been slain. His cause is lost. It is over. Lay down your arms.”

Slowly, the mass – which had come to a dead stop at the _Ceancinidh_ ’s order, began to set down their blades. The clanking of metal on metal and metal on metal began to echo down the hall, the hanging tapestries seemingly doing little to mute the noise. I put the Remington’s safety on and lowered it, wrapping a single hand around the receiver to carry it, but didn’t put it down. Then I became aware of a harsh burning sensation in my thigh. I looked down to see a dark patch speading through across my pant leg.

Right. I’d been shot again.

“Excuse me, Your Honor? Probably a dumb question, but do your people know much about human anatomy and human medicine?”

“We know some amount. Why?”

“Because I need a medic.”

And naturally, my leg chose precisely that instant to give out, and I tumbled to the floor in an undignified heap.


	10. Chapter 10

It turns out the Selkie know quite a bit about human medicine and human anatomy, because they patched me up good as new. In just about four days, I was back on my feet and fully recovered. I chalked it up mostly to the foul-tasting concoction that the Court Physician had me drink twice a day (the composition of which Rìchnea insisted I most certainly did _not_ want to know). And never let it be said that Clan Lordáigan are poor hosts: they set me up in a suite that would put the most luxurious human palaces to shame, and stuffed me full of the most delicious foods you could imagine.

I did turn down each of the offered courtesans. There were lots of them. It got awkward.

After a week of enjoying the (figurative) lap of luxury, I was summoned back before the _Ceancinidh_ and the Council of Clan Elders as they determined my fate. Specifically, whether or not they would force me to follow through with my still-unwanted betrothal to Rìchnea.

The Throne Room was as spotlessly clean as it had been when I’d first seen it. There was no trace of the slaughter that had taken place mere days before. The bodies and body parts had been removed, and the blood and core scrubbed from the floor, the columns, and the tapestries. How they managed to get all that fabric spotlessly clean, I had no idea. Maybe I could try to convince the _Ceancinidh_ to sell whatever process or potion they used to humans. Clan Lordáigan would make a literal mint.

I banished the admittedly silly idea (there was _no way_ the MCB would ever let that happen, not in a million years!) as the heralds sounded their trumpets and the meeting began.

“This Council of the Elders of Lordáigan shall come to order.” The _Ceancinidh_ ’s gentle command echoed through the room and the assembled crowd fell silent. “What affairs require our attention on this day?” A page stepped forward unrolled a scroll, and read from it.

“Honorable _Ceancinidh_ , there is but one affair requiring the attention of your wisdom and the wisdom of our Elders on this day: that of the betrothal in marriage of Princess Rìchnea of Lordáigan, Heir Presumptive of your seat and title, to the human Ser Michael Crockett of Monster Hunter International, and a petition for the dissolution of the aforementioned betrothal.”

“Very well. Who brings this petition before the Council?”

“Ser Michael Crocket of Monster Hunter International brings this petition before you.”

“Ser Michael has already brought this petition before this council!” one of the Elders exclaimed. “It was rejected.”

“Ser Michael is a friend of Lordáigan,” the _Ceancinidh_ replied. “And further, we now find ourselves in his debt. We shall hear his petition. I trust that Ser Michael is currently present?”

“I am, Your Honor.”

“Very good. Stand and be heard.”

I moved as slow and formal an heir as I could manage and I climbed onto the dais and bowed to the _Ceancinidh_ , and then turned and bowed to the Council of Elders.

“Honorable _Ceancinidh_ , honorable Elders of Clan Lordáigan, I must first beg your forgiveness of my bluntness and lack of decorum, as I am still unfamiliar with the ways and practices of this court. I come before you to ask that you dissolve my betrothal to Princess Rìchnea—”

“You have already made this demand,” one of the Elders – the same one who had protested my bringing forth the peititon moments before – scoffed. “We have already made ourselves clear on this matter: ‘I did not mean to’ or ‘It was an accident’ or ‘I have changed my mind and no longer want to’ may be considered valid enough reasons to dissolve a contract by your kind, but not among Selkie! And unless I am mistaken, even humans do not consider ignorance of law of law to be an excuse for not following it!”

I choked down an angry retort. Much as I wanted to verbally castrate him and the rest of the Council, I needed to keep my cool. I needed to make this work.

“...that you dissolve my betrothal to Princess Rìchnea, as doing so is in the best interests of Clan Lordáigan.”

The elders exchanged looks. They certainly hadn’t been expecting me to say _that_.

“Explain your rationale, Ser Michael,” the _Ceancinidh_ ordered.

“Your Honor, I know very little about Selkie customs and traditions, but I know enough to be certain that a human would never be accepted as the... husband? consort? of a _Ceancinidh_. My marrying Rìchnea would severely weaken Lordáigan’s standing and influence with the other clans. Lordáigan might even be perceived as weak enough that another clan, or clans, would be willing to risk a war of conquest.

“What’s more, there is the matter of the _Ceancinidh_ ’s bloodline. My understanding is that humans are Selkie are, uh, biologically compatible to the point where we can sire offspring, but my understanding is that a human-Selkie hybrid would never be accepted as heir. And while I assume that a _Ceancinidh_ can take a... uh... lover? Paramour? I don’t know what your term for it is, but would an illegitimate child be accepted as an heir? They aren’t in most human cultures, not even as a last resort in some cases.

“And then there’s me. Even overlooking the fact that I’m human, as I said I know next to nothing of Selke laws, customs, and traditions. And, well, I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly the most tactful human ever.” I heard a quiet giggle from somewhere in the crowd. I’m pretty sure it was Rìchnea. “I’m the last person, er, being you want involved in high-stakes political negotiations. Odds are I’ll get pissed off and say something stupid, or just straight-up say something stupid, and cause a whole mess of trouble. Up to and including, again, war with other clans.

“So please, I beg of you, for the good of the future Clan Lordáigan, for the future of your children and your children’s children, dissolve the betrothal between myself and Princess Rìchnea.”

The council began to exchanged murmured comments as I moved to step down from the dais.

“Hold a moment, Ser Michael,” the _Ceancinidh_ requested. “We would question thee further.”

“Of course.”

“You claim that you were unaware that Rìchnea was a Selkie at the time you chose to affect her rescue.”

“That is correct, Your Honor. At the time, she appeared per- uh, that is, completely human.”

“And the fact that her captor was carrying a fur coat during an especially hot summer escaped your notice?”

“It did not, but I did not make the connection. I was distracted.”

“Distracted? By what?”

“By my plan to ask the _human_ woman I love to marry me.”

“And would you have affected your rescue if you had known that Rìchnea was not human?”

“Yes.” The Council and onlookers alike were taken aback by my total lack of hesitation.

“Even knowing the consequences of your action?”

“Well...” I thought for a few seconds. “If I’d known she was Selkie, I would have done things a bit differently so I wouldn’t have wound up in my current predicament, but... yes. I would have helped her.”

“Why? Why would you help a stranger?”

“For a reward, no doubt,” that same annoying Elder quipped.

“I never asked for one when I found out who and what Rìchnea is,” I retorted, “I did it because that’s what humans do. We help others in need.”

“Do not lie, Ser Michael,” the _Ceancinidh_ cautioned.

“I’m not.”

“You are indeed.”

“I didn’t know Selkie could read minds.”

“We cannot, not to such an extent at least, though we are very well practiced in the art of perceiving deception.”

I had to fight back the urge to slap myself upside the head. No fucking shit, Sherlock. You don’t last through century after century of political maneuvering, double-dealing, and (sometimes literal) backstabbing without figuring out real quick how to spot a liar.

“Okay. You got me.”

“Then speak truthfully. Why did you choose to rescue Rìchnea?”

“I did it because...” I took a long, deep breath and steeled myself for the unpleasant memories I was being forced to deliberately resurface. “I did it because if I knew if I didn’t, I’d never be able to sleep at night ever again.”

“Oh? Explain.”

“See... my old man... he... ah... well, there’s no way to sugarcoat it: my father was a violent, angry, abusive asshole with a hair-trigger temper, just like Martin Godwin. Er, the human that was holding Rìchnea captive. And everyone knew what he was doing to us—”

“‘Us?’”

“My mother, my older brother, and me. So yeah, most everyone knew that he was beating us, but nobody cared. Not enough to actually do anything meaningful to help us, anyways. That lasted until one night he went off crazier than normal at Mom and, well, long story short, he beat her to death with a cast-iron frying pan. Smashed her skull in.

“And when I saw Godwin go apeshit at that restaurant, and saw how absolutely terrified of him Rìchnea was, I... I knew she was in the exact same situation I’d been in. And I knew that odds were good that sooner or later Godwin would fly off the handle at her and kill her too. And I’ve always wished that someone, anyone, would’ve helped us get away from my old man, so when I saw an opportunity to help someone trapped in that same situation, I took it. I had to. I don’t think I’d have been able to live with myself if I didn’t. I... uh... I have nothing further to say.”

“Thank you, Ser Michael,” the _Ceancinidh_ said after a long moment. Her voice was quiet, reserved, humbled even. None of the Elders spoke. The annoying one seemed to be pointedly avoiding looking in my direction. “You may step down. The Council shall discuss your petition. If there are no further affairs requiring our attention?” There were none, “Then the Council shall adjourn and render a decision on the petition of Ser Michael Crocket of Monster Hunter International. This Court is declared to be in recess until such time as the Council reconvenes to make our decision known.”

Rìchnea caught up with me as I left the Throne Room. I’d been hoping to head back to my suite alone and just wait there until the Council returned with its decision, but alas, no such luck. Oddly enough, I realized that I didn’t mind the company.

“Very well spoken, Ser Michael. And I am truly sorry for your loss.”

“It was a long time ago, not your fault. And I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”

“Whatever for?”

“I... well, let’s face it, when this whole mess started, I was a real dick to you. Said all kinds of terrible things about you, called you some really awful names. And I was completely wrong about you. And even if I wasn’t you didn’t deserve it. I am so sorry for treating you like that.”

“I humbly accept your apology, even though your mind was not wholly your own at the time.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t make it right.”

“Perhaps, but several of your assessments were not entirely incorrect. I am fully aware of the appearances that I put on. They were quite deliberate: it is rather easy to avoid notice and becoming the victim of potentially unpleasant political dealings when those around you believe you to be naught but an airheaded bimbo.”

I winced at that particular phrase.

“Yeah, but still... and for what it’s worth, I take back each and every single mean and unflattering thing I’ve ever said or thought about you.” She couldn’t help but smile at that remark, and I couldn’t help but notice that her smile really was quite beautiful.

“Shall we perhaps fetch a bite to eat whilst we wait for the Council to reach its decision.”

“Lead the way, Your Highness.”

Predictably, we had just barely entered the kitchens when a page appeared out of nowhere to inform us that the Council had reached a decision and our presence was therefore required in the Throne Room at once.

The speech that the head of the Council gave dragged on for what felt like an hour and came dangerously close to boring me to tears once the relevant bits were over and done with, but the long and short of it was that the _Ceancinidh_ and the Council of Elders had decided to grant my petition, and that my betrothal to the Princess Rìchnea was dissolved effective immediately. And as there was no further business to attend to, the Court was adjourned.

Well, that was that. Now I just needed to figure out how to get the hell out of here and back to my own realm. But before I could even think about who to ask for help getting back, a page – I think it was the same one as before – appeared at my side and informed me that the _Ceancinidh_ requested my presence in her chambers at once.

Ooohhhhh-kaaaaayyyyyyy... definitely hadn’t seen _that_ coming.

I spent the entire walk (and it was a very long walk) from the Throne Room to the _Ceancinidh_ ’s private suite trying to figure out how to respectfully yet firmly decline a sovereign monarch’s advances in a way that wouldn’t end with me falling out of the Clan’s good graces at best or me getting my head chopped up at worst. Unfortunately, I hadn’t managed to come up with any ideas that seemed actually, you know, _good_ by the time the page ushered me into the _Ceancinidh_ ’s study.

I was surprised to discover that the _Ceancinidh_ wasn’t alone: Rìchnea was sitting at what I presumed to be the _Ceancinidh_ ’s writing desk, but she stood as soon as I entered.

Ooohhhhh-kaaaaayyyyyyy...

“Ser Michael,” the _Ceancinidh_ greeted as she approached me. Oddly, she seemed rather unsure of herself. “We... that is to say, I... oh, protocol be damned! Thank you!” Her uncertainty melted away as she shrugged off her royal mannerisms, and for the first time I noticed that her eyes were wet with unshed tears. “Thank you for bringing my daughter back to me. I owe you a debt, that is to say I personally, not my Clan, owe you a debt that I doubt I shall ever be able to repay. And I speak not as a ruler, but as a mother, I... oh dear, I fear I am babbling.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Your Honor,” I replied, hoping my smile didn’t betray my relief, or my embarrassment at how I’d _seriously_ misinterpreted her intentions. “Like I said, I had to do it.”

“You had a choice to simply remain seated and, ah, ‘mind your own business,’ I believe is your saying.”

“No, I don’t think I did.”

“There is always a choice.”

“Not always.”

One of those uncomfortable awkward silences descended for several long moments until I my nagging curiosity finally got the better of me.

“Your Honor, may I ask you something?”

“You may,” she acquiesced with a polite nod.

“How did you know that I was about to shoot Eddi- uh, Edhémhnart?”

“What makes you think that I knew you were preparing to kill him?”

“You pulled your sword off my back a second before I dropped the hammer on him. You’d seen me fire the shotgun before, so you I’m guessing you’d realized that the recoil might rock me back and impale me on the blade. How’d you know I was about to fire?”

A knowing, mischievous grin split the _Ceancinidh_ ’s face and a humorous twinkle appeared in her eyes.

“Well, Ser Michael, the truth is that I too have spent time amongst the humans, and I found Don Johnson to be rather, ah, what is the term?”

“Dreamy?” Rìchnea ventured.

“Indeed. Thank you, Rìchnea. He was quite dreamy back in what you call the nineteen-eighties.”

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that it took me a full fifteen seconds to figure out what she meant.

“You saw that episode of _Miami Vice_?!” The _Ceancinidh_ actually giggled at that.

“My dear Ser Michael, I have seen _every_ episode of _Miami Vice_ , and many of them more than once. And given that you have seen fit to take the name of the series’ protagonist, am I correct in assuming that you have as well?”

“Yeah, uh, I mean, yes. I have the entire series on Blu-Ray.”

“Would you concur that the initial two seasons are by far superior to the rest of the show?”

“Absolutely. I mean, the series finale was awesome, but yeah, Seasons 1 and 2 had way more hits than misses.”

“And we shall not mention the abomination that was Season 4.”

“I dunno, I enjoyed the whole Burnett story arc. But other than that... yeah. Four was a stinker. Oh, and don’t take this the wrong way, but if you ever want to go for a ride in an actual Ferrari like was on the show, I own a Testarossa...”

“Thank you, Ser Michael, but I much prefer my Daytona Spider.”

“So do I, but even working for MHI, I can’t affor— Wait.... did you say ‘your’ Daytona Spider?!”

“I did indeed. Nineteen Seventy-One model year. Clachice-certified. Nero with a tan interior and top, of course.”

“Of course.... uh, about that debt you owe me...”

“No.”

“Your Honor....”

“Ser Michael, you may have my car only after you have pried the keys and the steering wheel from my cold, dead fingers.”

I threw my head back and laughed an honest, full belly-laugh.

“Your Honor, you are a Selkie after my own heart!”


	11. Chapter 11

And that, as the saying goes, was all she wrote. Pretty much, anyways.

What happened next was pretty boring, actually. Clan Lordáigan provided me with a “modest” reward for my heroism (that I suspected was also a “discreet” apology for all the hell that Eddie had tricked them into putting me through). Their idea of “modest” reward was a large-ish sack full of gold and jewels that, as I would later determine, was worth just a hair over ten million dollars. They also very kindly removed that translator leech parasite thingy from my head. That was _not_ a pleasant experience, but it beat the alternative: I wasn’t sure how the Monster Control Bureau would react to me walking around with a creature from another realm in my skull. And I figured that _their_ removal process would be significantly more painful – and more lethal – than the Selkies’.

Once that ordeal was over and done with, the _Ceancinidh_ personally escorted me back to MHI HQ in Cazador – and let me tell you, things got pretty squirrelly for a few minutes when a contingent of heavily-armed Selkie bodyguards showed up at the front gate – to demand an “audience” with Earl Harbinger. Thankfully Earl “graciously” acquiesced to her “request,” only to have to pick his jaw off the floor when the _Ceancinidh_ formally and personally apologized to Earl and all of MHI on behalf of Clan Lordáigan and explained the entire course of events. Namely how Eddie had fucked with everybody’s head.

Earl, for his part, rather humbly accepted her apology and assured her that MHI bore no ill will of any kind towards Clan Lordáigan. I think some sort of peace treaty might have been hashed out, but by that point I’d been dragged out of the meeting by Milo Anderson, who wanted a blow-by-blow recap of everything that had happened in the guise of a “field report” on the performance of the cold-iron firing guns he’d “borrowed.” He didn’t bother to hide his disappointment when all I could tell him about the guns was that they’d performed as advertised.

After all of the Selkie had finally left, Earl called me back into his office and offered me a pretty sweet deal: full reinstatement to MHI with back pay; a slot back on Team Spooky or any other Team, including his own First Team, regardless of whether or not they technically had an opening; a seven-figure “signing bonus”; and first dibs as Team Lead on two new MHI teams that the company was in the process of spinning up. I’d have to let him know whether I wanted either of the Team Lead positions “sooner rather than later” since the company needed to get both teams up and running ASAP, but he promised that the rest of the offer would remain open indefinitely.

“Whenever you wanna come back, Sonny, we’ll be happy to have you.”

I knew Harbinger well enough to know that that was as close to an actual apology as I was ever going to get from him.

I told him I’d think about it.

I took a flight from Montgomery to Philadelphia by way of Charlotte, North Carolina, then caught a puddle jumper to the regional airport closest to Stonebrook. When Dominique – Spooky’s Team Lead – asked why I hadn’t just called “Spooky Air” to come and get me. I told her that it just hadn’t occurred to me. I’m not sure either of us believed it.

I spent the next four days alternating between trying to find a reliable (and extra-discreet) jeweler to appraise (and ultimately purchase) all the loot that the Selkie had given me and bombing around the back roads in my Testarossa trying to get my mind off of, well, everything.

My fourth day home, I’d just parked the Ferrari in my garage and was about to head into the house when I heard the familiar howl of a certain customized Triumph Daytona 675R as it came cruising down my rather long driveway. I closed my eyes and let out a long, slow breath. I knew this moment was coming, and I knew that I’d put it off for way too long.

The Selkie had managed to recover and return her engagement ring. Right then, it was sitting in my desk drawer in my home office. She’d understand that I didn’t have it on my person at that moment. Right?

I waited until she’d parked the bike and was climbing off of it before slowly strolling out of the garage and onto the driveway. Odette pulled off her helmet and ran her hand through her long red tresses to smooth them out and untangle them. She gave me a smile that I could tell was forced. She wasn’t happy to see me. She looked like she’d just driven to her execution, not her ex-fiancé.

“Hey,” I said after a long, awkward moment.

“Hi.”

“Wanna come inside? I was gonna make some coffee...?”

“Yeah, coffee sounds good. No Death Wish, it—”

“Makes you a little jittery, not a good thing when you’re on the bike. Yeah, no problem. I have some regular dark roast...”

“That’s perfect.”

Neither of us said anything as we headed into the house. Neither of us said anything as I ground the coffee beans and got the pot brewing. Neither of us said anything once the coffee finished and I’d poured each of us a mug. I sprinkled a little sugar in mine. Odette took her coffee “black as my Recruit Division Commander’s heart,” as she liked to say. Neither of us said anything until our coffee had cooled enough to drink and we’d each taken a few tentative sips of the hot, bitter liquid. Neither of us managed to meet the other’s eyes.

“So...” I finally ventured.

“So,” she sighed.

“I miss anything interesting?”

“Not really.”

“No interesting jobs?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing happened?”

“Well, some idiot kids in Troxelville got bored last week, went out to a graveyard, and tried messing around with some 'voodoo spells' they found on the internet. Only they’d stumbled across some real hoodoo incantations, so they managed to accidentally raise themselves a dozen or so zombies. But nobody got bitten, we cleaned the infestation out easy enough. Even had the graveyard mostly put back together before MCB showed up.”

“Wow. Slow week.”

“Yep. Most entertaining part was watching Agent Kane read those poor kids the riot act.”

“Oooh,” I winced. MCB Agent Cynthia Kane was freaking terrifying when she was angry. “She didn’t break any of them in half, did she? Twist any of their spines into pretzels?”

“Thankfully not.”

“But they learned their lesson anyway.”

“Damn straight they did. One of the kids was a linebacker on the local high school’s football team, and she made him cry like a little girl.”

“My heart bleeds for the dumbass.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Neither does yours.”

“Point.”

Then came another few minutes of awkward silence while we sipped away at our drinks until the subject that we were both dreading was finally brought up. Odette was the one who jumped on the metaphorical grenade.

“Sonny...”

“Yeah?”

“Back when this mess started... when the Selke showed up at Spooky HQ and told us that you’d betrothed yourself to their Princes, I... I said some really horrible things. Accused you of some truly awful shit...”

“It’s not your fault. Eddie, uh, Edhémhnart, the Selkie behind this whole thing, he messed with your head. Messed with all our heads.”

“That’s just it! He didn’t!”

“Uh... Odette, don’t take this the wrong way, but you _did_ read Earl’s debrief on the situation, right?”

“I did. _And_ I talked with Albert Lee down in Cazador. And you know as well as I do that that Selkie fucker didn’t mind control me. He couldn’t.”

“Yeah he did –”

“No he didn’t. Not like you’re trying to convince me he did. Or hell, maybe you’re trying to convince yourself, I don’t know. But either way, Selkie can’t straight up control human minds. They can’t out-and-out force us to do anything. Just give our thoughts a push in a particular direction.”

“So?’

“ _So?!_ So it means that he didn’t force me to say or do those things! He didn’t plant those thoughts in my head! He only...” her eyes were heavy with tears now, and a few began to leak their way down her cheeks. “... he only pulled them out of the back of my mind.”

“We... we both have issues, Odette.”

“Yeah, but I’d convinced myself that I’d dealt with mine. That I’d worked through everything. That I’d pushed passed everything I’d been told since birth that I couldn’t do and wasn’t smart enough or good enough to do and that there was more to me than just my looks and that people would love and respect me for who I am, and... and... and I wasn’t that pathetic, scared, insecure little girl with zero self-confidence and a shitload of trust issues and mommy issues anymore. But deep down, I knew that I was lying to myself.”

My heart started to crack and my stomach began to fall towards my shoes. Somehow, I already knew where she was going with this.

“I’m not innocent in this,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I gave just as good as I got, if not better. And I am so –”

“Don’t you _dare_ apologize, Sonny! Don’t you dare! You had every reason to say what you said. I had _no_ reason, no real reason anyway, for what I did.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t make what I said and did right. And whatever problems we have, we’ll work through them together.”

“No, Sonny.”

“No?” The cracks in my heart grew and my stomach lurched downward another few inches. “What do you mean, ‘no?’”

“I mean that there is no ‘we’ in this, Sonny. There can’t be.”

“Wha... what are you talking about? We’re partners. For better or for worse, right? Rich or poor, sickness or health, through thick and thin, remember?”

“Sonny, I... I’m fucked up. Real fucked up. I thought I’d gotten my shit squared away, but I haven’t. And I need to. And I know it’s gonna be all kinds of hell and I... I care about you too much to drag you through it with me.”

I think that was the exact moment when my heart shattered into a million little pieces.

“‘Care about,’” I repeated the words back to her slowly, certain I’d misheard her. “‘Care about,’ not ‘lo–’”

“Don’t,” she choked. “Don’t say it.”

“You don’t love me.” My vision was starting to go blurry. I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes. It came away wet.

“I... I love what I thought we could have had.”

“We had it! It was real!”

“But it wasn’t realistic.”

“Wh... why not?”

“Because I’m too fucked up for it to have ever worked. Too insecure. Too jealous. If that Selkie asshole hadn’t gotten to me, somebody else would have. An old friend, a new teammate, somebody. And I would have come unglued and exploded and everything would have fallen apart. So this... this is for the best. We both know that.”

All I could do was sit there and stare at her. My capacity for speech was gone.

“Well?” she said after another long, painful moment. “Sonny? Say something.”

“I... I... What do you want me to say?”

“Say goodbye.”

“No!” I lurched to my feet, knocking my chair over with a clatter. Odette jumped at bit at the noise. “No! You don’t have to do this! I know you have issues and _I don’t care_!”

“Then you’re a damn fool.” Odette wiped the tears from her eyes as she stood, then pushed her chair in and started heading into garage.

“Odette, wait!” I started after her, reaching out to grab her arm as we entered the garage, but she snatched her had away before I could reach her.

“Sonny, listen...”

“No, you listen! I love you! Nothing has changed or ever will change that. And I understand why you think you have to do this, but you don’t! You’re not alone! And you don’t have to go through what’s coming alone!”

“Yes, I do, Sonny.”

“ _WHY?!_ ”

“Because I don’t deserve you, and you don’t deserve to have to deal with my bullshit.”

“Deserving’s got nothing to do with it!”

As we headed through the open garage door and onto the driveway, she stopped and turned around to face me for the first time since we’d left the kitchen. “Sonny, if you love me half as much as you say you do, as you think you do, then let me go. And don’t hop in the Ferrari and chase me once I’m gone. Just let me go.”

“I... Odette, please,” my voice was a cracked, hoarse whisper. “Please don’t do this.”

“Goodbye, Sonny.” Then without another word, she put on her helmet, climbed onto her bike, fired it up, and sped out of the driveway. I stared after her until she’d disappeared over the hill, kept on staring until long after the scream of the bike’s custom exhaust had faded into the distance, then slowly walked back inside, picked up my overturned chair so I could sit back down in it, and cried into my now ice-cold coffee.

_Fin_


End file.
